Preamble

The House—after the Adjournment on 28th July, 1955, for the Summer Recess—met at half-past Two o'clock.

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

DEATHS OF MEMBERS

Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the deaths of John Thomas Hall, esquire, Member for Gateshead, West, and the right honourable Hector McNeil, Member for Greenock, and I desire on behalf of the House to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the honourable and right honourable Members.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BLYTH GENERATING STATION (ANCILLARY POWERS) BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Rating Valuations

Sir F. Medlicott: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what it is anticipated will be the proportion of the total weight of rating which will be

borne by the occupiers of houses on the one hand, and shops and offices on the other hand, when the full effects of the forthcoming valuations can be fully measured.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I would not care to try to forecast the results of the new valuation.

Sir F. Medlicott: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are already indications that one of the results of revaluation may be to place an unduly large burden of rating upon owners of shop and office property? Will he reassure the House that it is his intention to try to hold the balance as fairly as possible between that kind of property and private houses?

Mr. Sandys: I have already made some fairly full statements on the subject to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Has the right hon. Gentleman at least made sure that industry pays its proper quota towards these burdens?

Mr. Sandys: I think that point arises in a later Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Lewis: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will now state what action he proposes to take to implement his undertaking to maintain the rating of the northern and southern outfall sewers.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes): My right hon. Friend is not yet in a position to make a statement.

Mr. Lewis: Does the Minister still abide by the assurance that he gave in Committee that the local authorities concerned will not lose in any way by whatever action he eventually takes?

Mr. Deedes: My right hon. Friend gave that assurance, and we have been exploring the position with officials of the London County Council.

Water Supplies, Arley

Mr. Moss: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware of the shortage of water supplies in the village of Arley in the Meriden rural district in the county of Warwick; and what steps are being taken to provide a sufficient supply of piped water at adequate pressure, and to renew the pipes where these are incapable of containing the flow.

Mr. Deedes: The National Coal Board, which is at present responsible for supplying water to the village, and Nuneaton Corporation, who will become responsible in the future, has recently improved pressures by increasing supplies in local reservoirs, and certain mains have already been replaced. A major scheme is being carried out which will enable the corporation in some two years' time still further to increase supplies to the village.

Mr. Moss: Is the Minister aware of the urgency of this situation at Arley? Is he aware not only that inconvenience is caused to housewives but that agricultural and production and trading interests will suffer? Is he aware also that the Nuneaton Co-operative Society has to carry water to Arley over a distance of five miles in churns?

Mr. Deedes: We are aware of that. The reservoir which was opened last month should give immediate assistance, but the scheme which will be completed in two years time should, I think, provide the final answer.

Private Streets and Roads

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will request all local authorities to make a survey of private streets and roads in their areas so as to ensure that action is taken to have them repaired where they are found to be in a dangerous condition.

Mr. Sandys: No, Sir. I think this is a matter which should be left to the discretion of the local authorities.

Mr. Swingler: Is not the Minister aware of the appalling condition of many private roads, owing to negligence over a long period of time, especially in the county district of North Staffordshire? Would he not urge local authorities to pay more attention to this matter and to use all the powers they have to require these roads to be made up, especially when they have, in fact, become public highways?

Mr. Sandys: I believe that local authorities are well aware of their responsibility in this matter, and I cannot feel that there is any advice I can usefully give to them on this subject.

Bracknell Development Corporation (Appointment)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what consultations he had with adjacent local authorities prior to his appointment of Mr. J. R. Colville to the Board of Bracknell Development Corporation.

Mr. Sandys: In accordance with the normal practice, I consulted the Berkshire County Council, the London County Council, the Easthampstead Rural District Council, and the Bracknell Parish Council.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: If these consultations did, in fact, take place, was it not merely misleading on the part of the Minister, in a letter to the local authorities concerned, to recommend Mr. Colville on the grounds of his intimate knowledge of, and residence in, the Bracknell area, whereas those alleged qualifications are absolutely fictitious?

Mr. Sandys: I really think that the gentleman appointed to the Board has every suitable qualification for an appointment of this kind. He was Private Secretary to two Prime Ministers—including the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. He was also Private Secretary to Her Majesty the Queen before her accession, and has held important positions in the Foreign Office. I think that an appointment of this kind should not be questioned in this way: it is quite frivolous.

Mr. Remnant: Can my right hon. Friend explain what the connection is between Brixton and Bracknell and why he failed to consult Brixton Borough Council?

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: On a point of order. In view of the attack which has been made upon me, may I very respectfully point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that I happen to be a resident of Binfield, which is in the area of one of the local authorities concerned?

Flats, Highgate

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware of the local indignation at his decision to permit the erection of a block of flats in Fitzroy Park, Highgate, for foreign diplomatic personnel, despite the opposition of St. Pancras Borough Council; and if he will reconsider the matter in view of this opposition.

Mr. Sandys: I am afraid I have nothing to add to the full information which I have already sent to the hon. Member.

Mr. Robinson: Is the Minister aware that this decision will seriously damage the amenities in a rural area within five miles of this House? Can he say why, when the L.C.C. were dissuaded from developing this area for houses, he has permitted this foreign embassy to embark on this development?

Mr. Sandys: I have already done what I could to protect this area—and I have had a certain amount of criticism from the party opposite for doing so. Among other things, in the London Development Plan I reduced the permitted density from 70 to 30 persons per acre. This building fully complies with the reduced density prescribed in that plan.

Theatres, London (Preservation)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will take powers to secure the preservation of theatres where this is in the public interest.

Mr. Sandys: So far as London is concerned, I modified the County of London Plan in such a way so as to ensure that only in very special circumstances would planning permission be given for converting a theatre to office use or for replacing it by an office building. The

policy of the London County Council under the Plan is to ensure the continued use of theatres as such, unless for economic or other reasons this becomes clearly impracticable.

Mr. Robinson: I thank the Minister for that satisfactory reply on this occasion. May I ask him whether the fears, which have been repeated, about the future of the St. James's theatre are groundless?

Mr. Sandys: To be quite frank, that slipped through the net before we got on to this point.

Derating

Mr. Wade: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what steps, in view of the increase in the burden of rates which is likely to fall on the occupiers of shops and offices when the new valuation lists come into force in 1956, he will take to minimise the loss which local authorities suffer from the derating of industrial premises, the consequence of which is to throw an added burden on to the occupiers of other premises including, in particular, occupiers of shops and offices.

Mr. Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will now repeal Section 68 of the Local Government Act, 1929, in so far as it relates to derating.

Mr. Sandys: This is the Question to which I referred the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) earlier.
I have nothing to add to the statement I made on this subject on 30th June last, of which I am sending copies to the hon. Members.

Mr. Wade: In view of the fact that certain local authorities have been receiving no compensation for loss resulting from derating, and as the occupiers of shops and offices are likely to be adversely affected by the new assessments, and are particularly concerned about this matter, can the Minister give any assurance that, pending the abolition of derating, grants will be made to local authorities to compensate them for the loss which they will suffer from derating?

Mr. Sandys: As I explained to the House on an earlier occasion, the Government have decided to undertake a full review of local government finances as a


whole as part of the problem of local government reorganisation and reform. I have given this assurance before and I will repeat it now. All aspects of local government finance will come within the purview of this examination, including, of course, the question of the derating of industry. Pending the outcome of that review, I should not like to prejudge the issue.

Mr. Mitchison: Are we to understand that the Minister's forthcoming statement will omit this urgent piece of unfairness—unfairness both to house occupants and to shop occupants? I refer to the statement that he told us he would quite likely make about rating.

Mr. Sandys: I am not aware of this statement that I am going to make.

Mr. Mitchison: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—who seems to have an uncommonly short memory, that that was in reply to Question No 7?

Reform

Mr. Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will make a statement on his discussions with the local authorities associations on the reform of local government.

Mr. Sandys: I am not yet in a position to make any further statement.

Town Development (Appointment)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the duties and terms of reference of Sir Humfrey Gale's appointment in his Department.

Mr. Sandys: I have appointed Sir Humfrey Gale to advise and assist me in securing speedier progress in the promotion of schemes under the Town Development Act for relieving the congestion of population in the large cities. Sir Humfrey Gale will be available to assist in negotiations between the local authorities of the cities concerned and the authorities of the "receiving" districts.

Mr. Donnelly: While welcoming this very necessary appointment, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that a great deal of the Town Development Act depends upon adequate subsidies for the smaller local authorities in the receiving areas? Without going any further than the statement which

was made earlier regarding housing subsidies, will the Minister give an assurance that nothing will be done in the future to prejudice the position of the smaller local authorities in those receiving areas?

Mr. Sandys: I am very happy to give that assurance.

Road Problem, Oxford

Mr. A. J. Irvine: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government to make a statement upon discussions in which he has recently taken part in Oxford on the city's traffic problem.

Mr. Sandys: Earlier this month I went to Oxford to discuss with representatives of the city council the Oxford road problem, which has given rise to so much controversy. The views of various sections of opinion in the town and in the University were explained to me by deputations from the bodies principally concerned. The representatives of the city council who took part with me in these meetings will shortly be submitting their recommendations to the council as a whole in the light of our discussions.

Mr. Irvine: Can the Minister give an assurance that he is aware that this matter is of wider concern that that which affects people who are resident for the time being in the university and in the city, and is he aware that he will not be forgiven if he permits a roadway to be constructed across Christchurch Meadows?

Mr. Sandys: It is because I felt that this was of wider concern that I have devoted a great deal of time and trouble to this problem.

Cemetery, Nottingham (Control)

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will now make a statement on his policy in the case of commercially-operated cemeteries which revert to the Crown on liquidation of the companies concerned, with particular reference to the Nottingham General Cemetery.

Mr. Sandys: I am advised that, whereas this cemetery has become vested in the Crown, the Commissioners for Crown Lands have no liability for managing it, unless they take possession; and this they have no desire to do.
In the circumstances, it would seem appropriate that the Nottingham City Council should assume control of the cemetery. Should the council decide to do so, I would be prepared to make a contribution towards its expenditure.

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: While thanking my right hon. Friend very much for the first answer on this Question which has not been entirely negative, may I ask him to bear in mind that for the last three months, since the liquidator was able to disclaim, no one has been in charge of the cemetery, it has been neglected, and there has been no manager and no access except unofficially? Does my right hon. Friend realise that this is causing great distress to many people in Nottingham whose relatives are buried there? As the Government have now accepted a limited form of ownership, could my right hon. Friend treat as a matter of urgency the acceptance of some of these obligations?

Mr. Sandys: That was not what I said in my reply. What I wished to indicate was that in the Government's view it is undoubtedly in the best interests of the inhabitants that the city council should take over the cemetery. I hope that the indication which I have given that the Commissioners of Crown Lands have no desire to take possession will lead the city council to the conclusion that it would be in the best interests of all concerned for the council to take over.

Mr. J. Harrison: Does the Minister visualise the City of Nottingham taking over the cemetery and continuing to run it as a cemetery or taking it over to prevent it from being left derelict and becoming a public nuisance? What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "taking it over"? [Laughter.] If the council is to take it over, does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the tremendous expense involved in this matter?

Mr. Sandys: I do not think that this is a laughing matter. It is a situation which has caused very much grief to the relatives of those who are buried there. I hope we may arrive at some decent and practical solution to this problem. What I have in mind is that the council should take it over, naturally as a cemetery and not for any other purpose.

Mr. Tomney: Will the internees of the cemetery be made sleeping partners in this venture?

Mr. Mitchison: Will the Minister consider promoting some legislation to deal with this question of cemeteries which, as in this case, do not seem to belong to anybody and for which nobody at the moment has any responsibility? When he does so, will he bear in mind that they can be a very heavy financial burden on local authorities?

Mr. Sandys: Fortunately, cases like this occur very rarely, but I agree that the position under the law is not wholly satisfactory. Nevertheless I do not want Nottingham City Council to wait for a new Act of Parliament before it takes what I believe is the proper action in this case.

COVENT GARDEN MARKET

Sir F. Medlicott: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware of the traffic congestion caused in the Strand, Kingsway, Charing Cross Road area by the existence of the Covent Garden Market; and whether he will use his town-planning powers to cause the present site to be vacated, and a new market to be opened at King's Cross or elsewhere.

Mr. Sandys: I am well aware of the traffic congestion in the vicinity of Covent Garden Market. This and other wholesale markets perform important functions in the national economy, which are now being reviewed by the Runciman Committee on Horticultural Marketing. We must obviously wait for the Committee's Report before deciding what action, if any, should be taken.

Sir F. Medlicott: Is the Minister aware that this is a special area in which the conditions in regard to planning, marketing and traffic are almost chaotic? Would he consider calling a conference of the parties especially interested both to examine the difficulties and to look at the great opportunities which this area holds?

Mr. Sandys: I think that we can all agree about the difficulties, but there are a great many differing views about how to get over them.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Personal Case, Macclesfield

Air Commodore Harvey: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government why he has not acceded to the appeal of Mrs. Legh, Adlington Hall, Macclesfield, against the decision of the Macclesfield Rural Council to refuse planning permission to build a dwelling-house in London Road, Macclesfield; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Deedes: My right hon. Friend is sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of the letter addressed to the parties on 14th February last, which sets out the reasons for my decision.

Air Commodore Harvey: Will the hon. Gentleman say if there is any connection between the refusal to grant this licence and the granting of a licence to build a petrol station which has been erected nearby quite recently?

Mr. Deedes: The decision on the petrol station was the local authority's and not my right hon. Friend's. All I can say is that this main road could be the right place for a garage and the wrong place for a dwelling-house.

Subsidies

Mr. Gibson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what steps he proposes to take to ease the financial burdens of local authorities on their housing accounts arising from the increasing of the rates of interest to five per cent. by the Public Works Loan Board.

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is now in a position to state the Government's policy in respect of the housing subsidies.

Mr. Lewis: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will make a statement on his discussions with the Association of Municipal Corporations on the subject of housing subsidies.

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) whether he is aware of the increased burdens of local authorities due to increased loan charges; and whether Her Majesty's Government will grant larger housing subsidies to help meet this burden;
(2) whether he is aware that the financial burdens of the necessary action for an adequate slum clearance programme under the provisions of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) Act are wholly beyond the available resources of county boroughs in northern industrial areas; and what action he is prepared to take.

Mr. Sandys: I would ask hon. Members to await the statement which I shall be making on this subject later this week.

Mr. Gibson: In considering the making of that statement, will the Minister take into account the fact that the raising of the interest rate to 5 per cent. inevitably means a very substantial increase in rates? As the Blue Book on income and expenditure in this country shows that there are 17 million workers whose incomes are less than £10 a week, does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the policy of the Government, whatever it may be ultimately, should consider the interests of those for whom the houses are built?

Mr. Sandys: I should be glad of any assistance from the hon. Gentleman in drafting my statement.

Sir T. Moore: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that he will have the support, not only of the House, but of the country, in any action he takes to overcome the existing anomalies?

Mr. Lewis: When he makes a statement will the Minister also bear in mind that many local authorities, such as my own in West Ham, lost over one-third of the houses in the blitz? People were blitzed out on three, four or five occasions, and the only way by which local authorities can rebuild, and so rehouse the people, particularly in blitzed areas, is by an adequate system of subsidies.

Easington

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware of the difficulty experienced by the Easington Rural District Council in providing sufficient accommodation for the growing mining population in its area; and what account is taken, in granting permits to build houses, of the effect on coal production if housing accommodation is available for miners who wish


to leave adjoining districts, where pits are being worked out, to migrate to more productive areas.

Mr. Sandys: I understand that the Easington Rural District Council has been allocated as many houses as it can reasonably expect to build. However, if there are any special difficulties, I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would send me particulars.

Mr. Shinwell: Have I not been frequently in touch with the right hon. Gentleman's Department about the shortage of houses in this area? Is he aware that if this council were granted permission to build more houses it would absorb the available capacity? Does not the shortage of houses in this flourishing mining area call for full production, and will not the right hon. Gentleman look at this matter again?

Mr. Sandys: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is in such close touch with the housing position of the Rural District Council of Easington as, perhaps, he should be. Apparently he is not aware that as a result of representations which he was good enough to make to my Department an increase in the allocation of the number of houses to the rural district council has been granted.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the Minister aware that I am so well acquainted with the matter that I know that when we applied, not very long ago, to his Department for an allocation of 100 houses only 50 were granted, and that I even had great difficulty in persuading him to agree to four agricultural cottages being built. In view of the attack which he has made on me, does he know that every day—or almost every day—I receive communications from people in the area about the shortage of houses?

Mr. Sandys: Having regard to circumstances before the war, which I recollect, I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, of all hon. Members in this House, should describe the gentle words I used as an attack. According to my information, the council is likely to build about 150 houses this year, which is appreciably above the average which it has completed in the last few years.

Slum Clearance

Wing Commander Bulbs: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government to make a statement on the progress of slum clearance.

Mr. Sandys: All but thirty-two of the 1,466 local authorities in England and Wales have now submitted to me their proposals for slum clearance. I propose shortly to lay a White Paper showing each authority's estimate of the number of unfit houses in its area and their programmes of work over the next five years.

Wing Commander Bulbs: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that there will be no slackening in the pace of this work?

Mr. Sandys: On the contrary, I want to speed it up.

Improvement Grants

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the number and total values of grants made under the Housing Repairs and Rents Act to private property owners in respect of improvements to old houses and to local authorities in respect of slum properties, respectively.

Mr. Deedes: Up to 31st August last 39,000 improvement grants had been made to the owners of private houses, 29,000 of these since the passing of the Housing Act, 1954. Figures are not yet available for the amount of grant paid, since some claims from local authorities for the Exchequer portion of the grant are still outstanding.
Local authorities have indicated that they intend to patch about 90,000 houses during the next five years. The City of Birmingham has been informed that approximately 25,000 houses will be accepted for patching grant. No claims for grant have yet been made.

Unfit Houses (Temporary Use)

Mr. A. J. Irvine: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) whether he will give an approximate figure of the number of houses in England and Wales, to the latest convenient date, whose demolition has been postponed by local authorities under the


powers conferred upon them by Section 2 (1) of the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954;
(2) whether he will give an approximate figure of the number of houses in England and Wales, to the latest convenient date, which local authorities have purchased in lieu of making demolition orders under Section 3 of the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954.

Mr. Deedes: The information asked for is not at present available. Details of the number of unfit houses to be retained in temporary use by local authorities will, however, be published as early as possible next year in a revised form of the Quarterly Housing Return.

Mr. Irvine: As this information is not presently available, may I ask whether it is possible for the Minister to say whether the powers conferred by these Sections are being effectively exercised by local authorities? Has any impression been formed one way or another?

Mr. Deedes: I should not like to generalise on that question without notice.

Site Purchases (Payments to Land Board)

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that the obligation placed on certain local authorities, who purchase land for housing, to repay to the Central Land Board moneys expended by the Board in extinguishing claims for loss of development value, plus commuted interest retrospective to July, 1948, irrespective of the date of acquisition by the local authority, adds unduly and unfairly to the cost of housing and to rents; and if he will reconsider the matter.

Mr. Deedes: The answer to both parts of the Question is "No, Sir." This land was bought at existing use value. Now that local authorities no longer have to pay a development charge to the Central Land Board, it is only fair that they should meet these payments which are part of the cost of acquiring the land.

Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that this decision bears extremely hardly on many London boroughs? Is he further aware that in the Borough of Finsbury the extra money that has had to be paid for land after the flats have been built

amounts to £900 a flat, which is 16s. a week? Does the Minister not agree that that is both inflationary and has forced up the cost of living? If he agrees that it is fair to the landlord, will he not be fair to the local authorities, and try to give them some special assistance in special cases?

Mr. Deedes: It is not possible to legislate separately for individual authorities, but authorities who pay high prices for the land they buy benefit under the expensive sites scale.

Requisitioned Premises

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that although the owner of a requisitioned house who accepts the licensee as tenant receives compensation for loss of right to vacant possession, he can also obtain vacant possession within five years if the local authority rehouses the tenant; and if he will take steps to remove the possibility of such a misuse of public moneys.

Mr. Sandys: I think it most unlikely that there will be many cases of this kind.

Mr. Collins: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his answer means that if local authorities are not to be parties to this double payment of public funds they must keep the tenant in the requisitioned house for four years or more? Many of these houses are very sub-standard, and it means that the tenants are being deprived of the chance, to which they are entitled, of a decent flat through the waiting list. This is grossly unfair and is a gross misuse of public funds. Will not the Minister look at this matter again?

Mr. Sandys: There was plenty of opportunity to discuss all this when we debated at great length the provisions of the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, but I really believe that this is largely a hypothetical problem and I would prefer to wait until it arises. All I would say now is that I feel confident that local authorities, in deciding which owners to approach with this offer of compensation, will have regard to the question whether the accommodation in which a tenant is living is of a suitable kind and is likely to provide him with a permanent home.

Mr. Collins: Will the Minister look at particular cases? He says that he does not think they are likely to arise, but if they do arise will he look at them and do something about them?

Mr. Sandys: They have not arisen yet.

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that large numbers of two- and three-roomed flats, in requisitioned houses, which have become empty, cannot be relet by the local authority, because the owners withhold consent; that this accentuates the grave housing shortage in certain Metropolitan boroughs; and if he will, by regulation or otherwise, amend the Requisitioned Houses Act, so that local authorities can continue in effective control of such dwellings until 1960.

Mr. Sandys: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. The power to permit local authorities to retain control of requisitioned dwellings which become vacant is already provided in Section 3 of the Act, and the exercise of this power does not require the owner's consent.

Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that the Question is directed at dwellings which are let in several tenancies? If one tenancy becomes vacant it can be relet only with the consent of the owner. If he withholds consent, it cannot be relet. Will the Minister look into the matter, because a large number of these dwellings are empty and cannot be relet or used by the local authorities, particularly in connection with slum clearance?

Mr. Sandys: This point was very thoroughly discussed, and I think there was general agreement on it on all sides of the House during the debate on the Requisitioned Houses Act. The hon. Member is referring, I think, not to flats but to individual rooms or groups of rooms which are not self-contained dwellings. It was agreed on all sides of the House, I think, that it was not fair to require an owner to receive back odd rooms in a house when what he wanted was to get back the complete dwelling in order to live in it himself or relet it as a dwelling. We did not wish to perpetuate this arrangement whereby people are living in sub-standard conditions in odd rooms dotted here and there about a house.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Manpower (Basic Industries)

Mr. Moss: asked the Minister of Labour how far the decline in manpower in the basic industries evident in 1954 has been arrested; and what steps are being taken by his Department to maintain adequate manpower in these industries.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Harold Watkinson): In the first eight months of 1955 the total number employed in the basic industries increased by 72,000. This was largely a seasonal increase but it is 17,000 more than in the corresponding months in 1954. In coal mining, however, the number in employment declined by 6,000 in the first nine months of the year. To meet the situation in coal mining my Department in conjunction with the National Coal Board is conducting a widespread publicity campaign designed to encourage recruitment to and discourage wastage from the industry. Agriculture will benefit in future from the new National Service deferment arrangements, and in general special attention is given as necessary by the employment exchanges to filling vacancies in the basic industries.

Mr. Bevan: Is the Ministry of Labour making any effort to consult the Ministry of Housing and Local Government as to the extent to which an increase in recruiting in the mining industry might be brought about by better housing and more housing in the mining areas?

Mr. Watkinson: That is a very good point which we have very much in mind.

Mr. Bevan: Would the Minister be prepared to tell the House quite soon what the results have been?

Mr. Watkinson: I could not give the information without notice.

Industrial Disputes (Work Stoppages)

Sir C. Taylor: asked the Minister of Labour how many official strikes and how many unofficial strikes now in operation have been reported to his Department; and in which industries.

Mr. Watkinson: The number of stoppages of work due to industrial disputes known by my Department to be in


existence a week ago is forty-six, many of which are minor disputes involving few workpeople. The industries in which they are occurring are as follows:—

Coal mining
…
24


Shipbuilding and engineering
…
13


Building and contracting
…
3


Hosiery
…
1


Cotton spinning
…
1


Railways
…
1


Stone dressing
…
1


Chemicals
…
1


Omnibuses
…
1

I regret that the information at my disposal does not distinguish between official and unofficial stoppages.

Sir C. Taylor: Can my hon. Friend say whether any of these strikes are of long duration?

Mr. Watkinson: Not without notice. I do not think there are any prolonged stoppages among this group.

Disabled Persons

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Labour the number of disabled persons who are now in employment and the percentage that is unemployed.

Mr. Watkinson: In September, 1955, there were 825,359 persons registered as disabled, of whom 36,198 were unemployed. By no means all disabled persons in employment are registered and I cannot, therefore, give the full information asked for by my hon. Friend.

Working to Rule

Sir C. Taylor: asked the Minister of Labour in how many, and in which, industries the principle of working to rule is at present in operation.

Mr. Watkinson: I regret that this information is not available.
The phrase "working to rule" is not sufficiently precise, as indicating any particular method of operating working rules, to allow of information regarding instances being systematically collected.

Standing Industrial Health Advisory Committee

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has yet appointed the members of the Standing Industrial Health Advisory Committee; and whom he has appointed.

Mr. Watkinson: Yes, Sir. The first meeting of the Committee was held on

18th March last and there have been three subsequent meetings. With permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement showing the composition of the Committee.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Could the hon. Gentleman at least say whether there is any representation from medical officers of health or those with wide experience of this work on the local authority side?

Mr. Watkinson: There is a very wide representation on this Committee, and I am circulating a list of its members in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

Industrial Health Advisory Committee

Chairman: The Minister of Labour and National Service.

Deputy Chairman: Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans, K.C.M.G., C.B., Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Labour and National Service.

Members

Mr. A. E. Huffam, Mr. W. C. Mitchell and Mr. W. W. Visen: British Employers' Confederation.

Sir Alfred Roberts, C.B.E., Mr. G. H. Lowthian, M.B.E. and Mr. A. McAndrews: Trades Union Congress.

Mr. Frank Gilbert, O.B.E., M.Inst.T.: Nationalised industries.

Dr. R. S. Aitken. M.D., D.Phil., F.R.C.S., F.R.C.P. (Ed.), F.R.A.C.P.: Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom.

Dr. T. Bedford, D.Sc., Ph.D.: British Occupational Hygiene Society.

Mrs. I. G. Doherty, S.R.N. Industrial Nursing Cert.: Royal College of Nursing.

Professor R. R. Lane, M.D., F.R.C.P.: Royal College of Physicians, in agreement with the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Society of Apothecaries.

Dr. R. Nightingale, M.B., Ch.B.: Association of Certifying Factory Surgeons.

Dr. L. G. Norman, M.D., B.Sc., M.R.C.P., D.P.H. and Dr. J. A. L. Vaughan Jones, C.B.E., M.B., Ch.B., J.P.: British Medical Association.

Mr. C. W. Prout: Member, National Health Executive Council and National Health Local Advisory Council.

Dr. R. S. F. Schilling, M.D., D.P.H., D.I.H.: Association of Industrial Medical Officers.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL SERVICE

Personal Case

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Labour, in view of the fact that Malcolm Harris has now been found unfit for service in the Armed Forces, by a specially requested medical examination,


what action he has taken in respect to those members of the previous medical board who decided otherwise, resulting in his being instructed to report to the Royal Air Force on 11th July last whilst he was suffering pain and inconvenience from a spinal injury necessitating treatment three times a week at Gravesend Hospital and the wearing at all time of a special corset with steel supports.

Mr. Watkinson: I am satisfied that the members of the medical board which first examined this man acted perfectly correctly in referring him to a consultant, on whose report grading was determined.

Mr. Dodds: Why does the Parliamentary Secretary continue to evade the question? Is it not a fact that the man was wearing a corset with steel supports? Is it not a fact that this was not recorded and that this man was to have gone into the Air Force whereas now, having been seen, he is not to undertake any service whatever? Why does he defend an obvious blunder?

Mr. Watkinson: In this case the hon. Member is not quite on the right point. Whether this man was wearing a corset or not, the medical board did what was right in his interests, there being some doubt as to his medical fitness, and referred him to a consultant. His grading was decided on the consultant's report.

Mr. Dodds: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory answer, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — CSOTLAND

Housing

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland in respect of how many houses in Scotland repairs increases have been made in terms of Part II of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Act, 1954; in how many cases certificates of disrepair have been issued; and in how many of these cases they have been withdrawn subsequently or revoked upon appeal.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. James Stuart): According to the current valuation rolls, repairs increases are payable in respect of 14,417 houses.
As the answer to the second part of the Question involves a table of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the table:


I. Certificates of disrepair (issued under Section 18 (1) of the 1954 Act)


Number of applications for certificates of disrepair
4,683


Granted
3,228


Refused
988


Withdrawn or still under consideration
467

Of the 4,683 applications for certificates, 2,444 were in respect of houses which had been the subject of a notice of repairs increase under the 1954 Act and 2,239 were in respect of houses where no repairs increase had been claimed.

Number of applications for revocation of certificates of disrepair
765


Granted
600


Refused
30


Withdrawn or still under consideration
135

II. Certificates of service of notices requiring execution of works under Section 7 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1950 (issued under Section 18 (2) of the 1954 Act)


Number of certificates issued
26


Number of applications for revocation of certificates
1


Granted
1

III. Certificates of repair and certificates of refusal to grant repair certificates (issued under Section 20 and the Second Schedule of the 1954 Act)


Number of applications for certificates of repair
108


Granted
52


Refused
52


Withdrawn or still under consideration
4


Number of applications for revocation of certificate of refusal
1


Granted
1

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what proposals have been made for the temporary repair of old houses with the aid of Exchequer subsidies in terms of Part I of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Act, 1954;
(2) what proposals he has received from local authorities for the demolition of unfit houses and the rehousing of the dispossessed during the next three years, as required under Part I of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Act, 1954.

Mr. J. Stuart: At the 19th October, 147 local authorities had submitted statements showing that 166,000 houses in their districts are unfit. They consider that of this number 42,000 can be rendered fit


by the carrying out of work by the owners. During the next three years these authorities themselves propose to demolish 25,000 houses and to retain 450 in clearance areas temporarily in occupation pending demolition. They estimate that 26,000 new houses may be required for rehousing purposes.
Proposals have yet to be received from eighty-three local authorities, including some of the largest.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: Has my right hon. Friend been able to form any estimate of the time within which all slum property in Scotland could be cleared?

Mr. Stuart: I am afraid I cannot give my hon. Friend any definite view. In many areas I hope it will be within ten years, but in others it will take longer.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman proposing to report to the House whether this Act is really being effective or not, as there are many statements to the effect that certain parts of the Act are proving quite ineffective? Has he any information on the subject?

Mr. Stuart: It is being effective up to a point, but it is fairly early yet. I hope that the Act will become more effective in the course of time.

Fishing Industry

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that the United Nations International Law Commission has approved ten articles dealing with and entitled, "Freedom of Fishing"; and if he will make a comprehensive statement indicating how this will affect the fishing grounds customarily used by Scottish fishermen.

Mr. J. Stuart: The International Law Commission has drafted certain Articles relating to fisheries on the high seas. These have been submitted to Governments for comment before the Commission prepares its final Report for submission to the General Assembly of the United Nations. The fishing industry will be consulted before Her Majesty's Government make their comments to the Commission. The Articles are, therefore, at a preliminary stage and any statement would be premature.

Mr. Hughes: In view of the importance of this matter to the fishing industry of

Scotland—involving thousands of families—will the Secretary of State issue a more comprehensive statement on the subject so that the fishermen may know where they stand—or where they sail?

Mr. Stuart: I have said that we shall consult representatives of the industry before any conclusions are reached.

Sir D. Robertson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the failure of the Herring Industry Board to secure a market for the catch; the hardship caused by the Board's prohibiting fishing at times of abundance; and if he will take steps to overcome these difficulties and to make the Board financially independent of Government subsidies.

Mr. J. Stuart: The Herring Industry Board normally guarantees a market for all the catch by buying surplus herring for reduction to oil and meal. It would, however, be uneconomic to provide enough processing factories to deal with exceptionally heavy catches and at times, therefore, it is necessary to restrict fishing. The Board is, with Government aid, providing oil and meal factories at the principal herring ports in the expectation that it may be able to handle all but the most abnormal surpluses of herring without a Government subsidy. It is also considering proposals to assist private firms to handle more herring.

Sir D. Robertson: Is it not a complete failure to use this very fine food, herring, not for human consumption, but instead for reduction to oil at a price of 1¼d. a 1b. to the fishermen, which cannot pay fishermen in any part of Europe and which has to be subsidised by the Exchequer? Would it not be better to freeze the surpluses, as has been done in the horticultural industry with such success?

Mr. Stuart: Quick-freezing plants are expensive and only in times of glut would they be required. I am very anxious to see the normal consumption continue and, in cases where the catches are heavy, reduction to oil and meal seems to be the best outlet.

Health Visitors

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received from local


authorities in Scotland seeking an increase in the number and an improvement in the pay and conditions of service of health visitors for the elderly sick; and what steps he now plans to take to improve the numbers, pay and conditions of such health visitors.

Mr. J. Stuart: I have not received any such representations. Matters relating to pay and conditions of service are for the Whitley Council; while means of securing an increase in recruitment are under consideration by the working party on the work, recruitment, and training of health visitors, whose Report is expected shortly.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Secretary of State aware that this is not only a matter for the Whitley Council, but also a matter for him inasmuch as health visitors have to pass more examinations and get less pay than hospital nurses; and that it is up to him to do something about it?

Mr. Stuart: I am equally anxious not to do anything which would interfere with the supply of hospital nurses, who are also in short supply.

Fishery Research Ship "Explorer"

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the cost of Fishery Research Ship "Explorer"; when she will be ready for sea; and what her programme of work will be in the near future.

Mr. J. Stuart: I expect the ship to cost about £313,000 and to be ready for sea at the end of January next. She will be employed mainly in the nearer waters in her first year but will make occasional trips to the Faröes and waters further off. Her duties will include the collection of information about stocks of fish and sea conditions and she will carry out fishing experiments with trawls and other kinds of gear.

ATOMIC ENERGY CONFERENCE, GENEVA

Mr. Janner: asked the Prime Minister to make a statement on the international conference on the peaceful uses of atomic energy, held recently at Geneva.

The Prime Minister (Sir Anthony Eden): I am glad to inform the House that reports from all sources confirm the

considerable success achieved by this Conference. Much information of importance to the development of the peaceful uses of atomic energy was made available and discussed, and all countries should benefit from the exchanges that took place.
The United Kingdom made a notable contribution, both to the Conference itself and to the exhibitions which were held at the time.

Mr. Janner: Is the Prime Minister aware that the cost of the Report, which is a reduced amount, is £39 at present? Will he take steps to see that hon. Members are able to obtain copies at a lower price, or free, so that they can consider the very important matters discussed in the Report?

The Prime Minister: Does the hon. Member say that he wishes to see the Report?

Mr. Janner: I think that would be useful to hon. Members.

The Prime Minister: I will gladly look into that.

PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (BROADCAST DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the limitations on the freedom of speech of Members of Parliament, and others, that is being imposed by the directive of the Postmaster-General preventing discussion on the British Broadcasting Corporation of Bills that have been laid before the House of Commons and which have not yet been debated in the House; and whether he will now withdraw the ban.

Mr. Grimond: asked the Prime Minister if he will remove the 14-day ban on radio discussion.

The Prime Minister: The directions recently issued by the Postmaster-General do not impose any new restrictions upon broadcast discussions but they do require confromity to a practice which has been followed by agreement between the British Broadcasting Corporation and the major political parties for some years. The rule was originated by the B.B.C. and in its present form dates back to 1948. The Government continue to believe that the principle


embodied in this rule is in the best interests of Parliament for many reasons, some of which my predecessor in office gave the House in February of this year. I understand that the right hon. Gentlemen on the opposite Front Bench also continue to share this view, and I, on behalf of the Government, believe that the existing practice should continue.

Mr. Davies: Whilst thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that answer, may I ask him whether or not this practice also applies to newspapers, or whether hon. Members are to take into regard newspapers when they are discussing Bills?

The Prime Minister: If hon. Members will take my advice, it would be strongly not to regard newspapers when they are discussing what they are going to say in this House.

Mr. Grimond: Does the Prime Minister think that a practice—however old—which is made by some hole-and-corner agreement between the party machines, which limits free speech and is quite clearly unworkable, really adds to the prestige of Parliament?

The Prime Minister: The curious thing about this is that it has worked fairly reasonably well. It is like many of our practices which seem to other people unworkable, but they do in fact rumble along after a reasonably fair fashion. If hon. Members want to take an opportunity to discuss the matter on some occasion, I personally have no objection at all, but my advice to the House would be, let us see how this thing works out and not get too much perturbed by some of this rather unnecessarily frenzied agitation outside.

Mr. Shinwell: Leaving aside the merits of the question, about which, obviously, there is a conflict of opinion—I do not express any view about it—does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that when he speaks about this agreement having been reached as a result of discussion between the major political parties, that is not entirely accurate, and that the agreement was reached as between the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) and himself and the present Leader of the Opposition and Deputy-Leader of the Opposition, without consultation with Members of parties on either side? Does he not agree that, as this is a matter which

concerns back benchers, there ought to be free discussion in the House and a free vote of the House upon this matter?

The Prime Minister: To the best of my recollection, it is quite likely that I was with my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) at the meeting with the present Leader of the Opposition and some other representative which took place in 1948. We were not then the Government in power, but we were kindly invited by the Government, very properly, to attend the meeting. At this stage of affairs I certainly would not start telling the Government of that day who should have represented them at that meeting.

Mr. Shinwell: I am sure that hon. Members really desire to get the facts. I ask the right hon. Gentleman again: inasmuch as he admits that he and his right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford consulted some people on this side of the House, did he at the same time consult the Members of his own party?

The Prime Minister: We have our constitutional methods, which the right hon. Gentleman may like or dislike. All I have to deal with is the complaint by the right hon. Gentleman that the Government of the day, which was not a Conservative Government, proceeded on the basis of inviting the then Opposition to send certain representatives. The Opposition did so, and I think they were reasonably good representatives. What I will not be drawn into is an expression of view as to whether the Government representatives were well chosen.

Mr. C. Davies: In view of the fact that this matter involves a much wider question—the question of free speech and the right of people to express their views at any time—will the Prime Minister assist in having this matter fully debated in the House?

The Prime Minister: I simply cannot see how this affects the real rights of free speech in this country. Watching some European countries, I have seen free speech disappear, perhaps, because Parliaments did not take enough care of their own liberties and their protection. Perhaps the question can be discussed through the usual channels, but I hope that the Government will not be told that they have promised time for debate; that is a matter for discussion.

BURGESS AND MACLEAN

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Prime Minister whether he will move to appoint a Select Committee to investigate the circumstances of the disappearance of Burgess and Maclean in particular, and the efficiency of Civil Service security arrangements in general.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Lieu1.-Colonel Lipton: Has the Prime Minister made up his mind to cover up at all costs the dubious third man activities of Mr. Harold Philby, who was First Secretary at the Washington Embassy a little while ago; and is he determined to stifle all discussion on the very great matters which were evaded in the wretched White Paper, which is an insult to the intelligence of the country?

The Prime Minister: My answer was "No" to the hon. and gallant Member's Question, which was not about all that but asked for the appointment of a Select Committee. My answer remains "No." So far as the wider issues raised in the supplementary question are concerned, the Government take the view that it is desirable to have a debate, and an early debate, on this subject, in which I as Prime Minister will be glad to take part.

Mr. Robens: Has the Prime Minister made any investigation as to the reason why briefs supplied by Foreign Office officials to Ministers answering Questions in this House have been at so much variance with the facts of the case?

The Prime Minister: That seems to be one of the matters which might well be raised in the debate.

MALTA (CONSTITUTION)

Mr. P. Williams: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a full statement about the future constitutional position of Malta.

Major Wall: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement about the recent talks on the constitutional future of Malta.

The Prime Minister: Not yet, Sir. The Malta Round Table Conference has not completed its consultations.

Mr. Williams: Can my right hon. Friend give any indication when the

Conference expects to conclude its business and when the House may expect a Report of the Conference?

The Prime Minister: That is a matter for the Conference, which, from what I have read of reports of it, seems to me to have made very good progress indeed.

COMMONWEALTH TRANSANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Prime Minister to make a statement about the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

The Prime Minister: A company has been set up in the United Kingdom, under the Chairmanship of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, to undertake the organisation of a Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Her Majesty The Queen has graciously consented to become Patron.
As was announced in the House on 17th February, Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are making a grant of £100,000 towards the cost. Assistance is being provided in other ways by the Government; in particular the Air Ministry will provide air support for the Expedition.
Her Majesty's Governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are all contributing to the funds of the Expedition and men from all three countries as well as from the United Kingdom will take part. The New Zealand Government, who are making a generous grant of £50,000, are also arranging for support to be given by the Royal New Zealand Navy and the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The Expedition is, therefore, an outstanding example of Commonwealth co-operation in a joint effort.

NATIONAL SERVICE CALL-UP (WHITE-PAPER)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Prime Minister if he will give instructions to all Departments concerned to prepare and publish a programme for the gradual abandonment of the system of compulsory military service within a definite period.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Mr. Swingler: Is the Prime Minister not aware that that is a most disappointing reply, tending to reflect very harshly on the competence of Service Ministers? Are not the Government pledged to reduce the period of National Service and, indeed, to abandon the temporary measure of conscription at the earliest possible date? Does the Prime Minister not think that the Service Ministers are competent to prepare plans towards these ends, or when will the Government make a beginning to this job?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member may regard it as a disappointing reply; I can hardly think that he regards it as a surprising reply because the position of the Government on this matter is known, and further consideration may arise today. This is certainly a topic on which, I understand through the usual channels, the Opposition may well ask for a debate. We shall certainly welcome such a debate. We think it will be desirable on an issue of this importance.

Mr. Wigg: Will the Prime Minister consider publishing a White Paper so that the House and the country can judge the failure of the Government's manpower policy, which has planted conscription on this country for as far as one can possibly foresee?

The Prime Minister: There are some following Questions on this subject. We do propose to publish a White Paper, certainly, although I would not myself expect the country's conclusions to be those of the hon. Member.

Captain Pilkington: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the length or extent of National Service.

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the Government's proposals to alter the system of National Service.

The Prime Minister: On 8th October I announced the Government's decision to reduce by 100,000 over the next two and a half years the numbers in the Armed Forces. I said that the period of National Service would be retained at two years and that for the present the reduction would be brought about by raising the age of call-up. We leave ourselves free to decide, in the light of developments

in the international situation, whether to continue to use this method or to reduce the period of service.
I also announced our decision to reduce the burden of part-time National Service. Except for certain limited categories, details of which will be announced, the requirement will be reduced from 60 days to a maximum of 20.
As I have said, the House may wish to debate this matter and the Government would welcome such a debate. In order that hon. Members should have as much information as possible before the debate, I have arranged for a White Paper to be laid this week.
A Report prepared under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour and National Service on the effects of National Service on the employment and education of young men—a report which is important and relevant—is also being published this week. We are bringing it forward for publication this week.

Captain Pilkington: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the possibility of speeding up the training has been considered so that the valuable six months of a man's time comes after a year instead of a year and a half, so that the length of service may be cut?

The Prime Minister: Yes, most certainly. I think that is one of the aspects we might well discuss further. Certain plans about that have been under consideration with the Service Ministers.

Mr. Attlee: Would it not have been better and more in accordance with precedent if the statement in regard to National Service had been made first in this House and not at a party conference? May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to take note that it is the desire of the Opposition that we should debate this matter at a very early date?

The Prime Minister: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should take exception to the timing of the announcement. I did consider that carefully. I was under tremendous pressure even that week from the "Daily Herald." The "Daily Herald" asked me every day to stop considering the subject and to speak about it. I therefore thought I should be meeting the views of the Opposition if I followed the advice thus given.

Mr. Strachey: Is not the Prime Minister aware that before the Korean war the Armed Services sustained much larger commitments than they have now with a period of eighteen months' service? How, therefore, can he in his present statement imply that it is impossible to reduce the period to that level?

The Prime Minister: I said that in present circumstances it was, but we are, of course, reducing the numbers in the Armed Services. As the right hon. Gentleman, with his experience, knows, the reduction will be about 20 per cent., compared with five years ago, of the numbers in the Armed Forces. I do not want to debate this now, but if it is decided to make a reduction by curtailment of service, quite clearly we shall not get as good military results as we shall the other way. The House has seriously to weigh these alternatives.

Mr. Lewis: The Prime Minister said in his reply that the Ministry of Labour had been asked to make an investigation into the effects upon the young people, and particularly upon apprentices, and so on. Can he say whether or not the T.U.C. and the employers' federation were consulted? Will he publish in the White Paper the opinions of the T.U.C. and the employers' federation about the effect of National Service on young people, particularly apprentices?

The Prime Minister: This was a factual inquiry, I think the hon. Gentleman knows, conducted with the men themselves, who gave their immediate, direct observations on their National Service to the Ministry of Labour. I do not want to exaggerate its importance, but I think it is a useful kind of document for the House to have when debating the matter.

DEFENCE (ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Sir T. MOORE: To ask the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to make a statement in regard to the future scope and responsibilities of the Minister of Defence.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The responsibilities of the Minister of Defence

are defined in Command Paper 6923, presented to Parliament in October, 1946. In the view of Her Majesty's Government the Central Organisation for Defence set out in that paper continues to be basically sound. While the Prime Minister must retain ultimate responsibility in defence matters, it is the Government's intention that the authority and influence of the Minister of Defence should be strengthened. I have made certain arrangements within the Government to co-ordinate under the Minister of Defence planning and training for the joint action of civil and military forces in Home Defence. As a result of the transfer—which the House will remember—from the Ministry of Supply of certain functions connected with the iron, steel and engineering industries, that Ministry has become mainly a fourth Defence Department within the co-ordinating powers of the Minister of Defence.
I am also making it clear that the Minister of Defence's responsibility for the apportionment of available resources between the three Services extends to a responsibility for seeing that the composition and balance of forces within individual services meets the strategic policy laid down by the Defence Committee.
Her Majesty's Government have further decided to create a new post of Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. This officer, and the other three Chiefs of Staff, will jointly be the professional military advisers of the Government. He will normally be the United Kingdom representative on the Military Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and on other international defence organisations.
This appointment will not affect the right of an individual Chief of Staff to tender his personal advice should he differ from his colleagues. Her Majesty's Government believe that this appointment, while not altering the collective responsibility of the Chiefs of Staff Committee for the tendering of military advice as described in paragraph 31 of the 1946 Command Paper, will materially improve the efficiency of the organisation for defence.
Her Majesty the Queen has approved the appointment of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir William Dickson as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
I am also able to tell the House that the Secretary of State for Air is this afternoon issuing a statement that Her Majesty the Queen has approved the appointment of Air Marshal Sir Dermot Boyle as Chief of the Air Staff in succession to Sir William Dickson.

Mr. Attlee: What will be the exact position of the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in relation to his own Service? Previously, the conception was that we had a Chief of Staff in commission, and that each member of it was also responsible in his Department, and drew all his information from his Department. Is the new Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff to be left rather out on a limb and away from his Department, or is he to have staff as well at the Ministry of Defence?

The Prime Minister: The responsibility of the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff will, of course, be with his colleagues, with the other three, collectively to the Government, to whom they are responsible. Individually, in his N.A.T.O. capacity, or like responsibility, the responsibility will be to the Minister of Defence, and he will not, therefore, be acting in any sense in his previous existence, if I may put it like that. As to staff, he would in the main have the use of the existing Chiefs of Staff organisation, and we would not anticipate or provide for any great staff increases. I may add that all the technical advice I have been able to get is in favour of this arrangement. I can say that, and that one of the reasons we are doing that, and felt we must do it, apart from anything else, is that the burden which now falls on the Chiefs of Staff, especially in respect of a great many of these international organisations, is so heavy that they must be relieved of it—quite apart from the value we think this organisation itself will have.

Mr. Attlee: Is there not rather a difficulty in this instance of having two officers from one of the Services? Are we not then liable to get at cross-purposes, when one is in day-to-day touch with the Service and one, as I rather suggest, is rather out on a limb?

The Prime Minister: I do not think so, because the officer who takes the office of Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff—this has happened many times in war before—

can divest himself of what we may call his natural uniform, what he was wearing before, and does not remain interested only in the work of the Air Force. Admittedly, it depends on the men, but this country has always been able to find the men and I feel certain that the men will work this set-up well.

Sir T. Moore: While thanking my right hon. Friend for the statement, may I ask whether he appreciates that it is somewhat complicated and has wide repercussions? After we have had an opportunity of reading the statement, will it be possible to have a debate on the subject at a later date?

The Prime Minister: If we are to have a defence debate that could come into it.

Mr. Stokes: While appreciating what the Prime Minister said about the Supply Ministry coming in as a fourth arm, may I ask whether he means that the future powers of the Minister of Defence will give that Minister authority to take decisions himself and, so to speak, bang the heads of the Service Ministers together to ensure decisions being taken, so that the right things can be produced at the right times?

The Prime Minister: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's metaphors, I hope he will not mind my saying that I would rather see that question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Shinwell: While the steps which the Prime Minister is proposing to take will undoubtedly strengthen the influence of the Minister of Defence, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman would not agree that if the Ministry of Defence is to be thoroughly effective he must go a stage further and interfere with the autonomy of the three Service Departments, particularly the autonomy of the Board of Admiralty, the Air Council and the Army Council? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that, however strong the Minister of Defence may be, or thinks he may be, even with the help of the new officer who is in charge of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, the Board of Admiralty will defeat him every time. [Laughter.]—I know something about it—unless the powers of the Minister of Defence are so strengthened that the Board of Admiralty and the other Councils are subordinate to the Chiefs of Staff, the new officer, and the Minister of Defence?

The Prime Minister: I seem to have heard some of these technical arguments somewhere before, I cannot think where, but I am not asking the House this afternoon to embark on these questions, important as they are. What I am asking the House to embark upon is a comparatively modest step which, I think, will help the organisation—and my technical advisers also believe that it will assist them—and I hope that the House will approve of what we are doing.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the Ministry of Defence will have some responsibility for co-ordinating the scientific research programmes which are being undertaken for individual Services?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That exists already.

Mr. Strachey: Referring to the original question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Attlee) on the staff for the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, may I ask whether it will not be indispensable for him to have some staff in the Ministry of Defence or elsewhere if he is really to carry out these co-ordinating duties?

The Prime Minister: There are, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the joint staffs already whom he can use and to whom he will have access. We have considered this very carefully and we do not consider that a great amount of additional staff will be necessary.

Major Legge-Bourke: In welcoming my right hon. Friend's statement, may I ask whether there will be any consequential alteration in the communication and liaison between the Foreign Office, the Chiefs of Staff and the joint planning staff?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, not in these circumstances.

Mr. Wigg: Will not the Prime Minister agree that unless he introduces legislation to give the Minister of Defence some power over the Service Ministers, the statement he has made this afternoon is meaningless eyewash?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I think that it is a useful piece of work.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he has any statement to make on business?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): Yes, Sir. Tomorrow, Wednesday, 26th October, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Supplementary Budget.
On Thursday, 27th October, and on Friday, 28th October, general debate will take place on the Budget Resolutions and on the Financial and Economic Situation.
The business previously announced for today remains unchanged. I will announce later the dates when we propose to bring forward the business which has been postponed to make way for the Supplementary Budget.

Mr. Attlee: Is it intended that we should conclude the debate on the Budget in these three days? We do not know what its contents will be and I should like to give a warning that we might want extra time.

Mr. Crookshank: I note that.

Mr. Attlee: May I also ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will make arrangements for us to have a debate on National Service next week and whether he will bear in mind that we would like a debate fairly soon on Cyprus?

Mr. Crookshank: I take note of these suggestions, too, but Thursday is the day when I shall be announcing future business. This is only this week's.

Mr. Woodburn: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, that he will consider finding time for the business which has been displaced, may we take it that the debate on Scottish education will not be unduly delayed?

Mr. Crookshank: It will not be very much.

HON. MEMBER FOR PERRY BARR (SELECT COMMITTEE)

Mr. Crookshank: I have to inform the House that shortly after we adjourned for the Summer Recess it came to notice that the hon. Member for Perry Barr (Mr. C. Howell) was at the time of his election


a member of two panels constituted by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, one under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, and the other under the National Insurance Act, 1946. I am advised that these appointments may be offices of profit under the Crown, and, consequently, that the hon. Member may have been disqualified from being elected.
In accordance with the precedents, I will as soon as possible move for the appointment of a Select Committee to consider the position of the hon. Member.
My right hon. Friend terminated the hon. Member's appointment directly he was informed of the position and, pending the consideration of his case, the hon. Member is not, of course, taking any part in the proceedings of the House. Beyond that I do not think there is anything I can usefully or properly add at this stage.

Mr. Attlee: May I ask whether any progress has been made in trying to get this somewhat anomalous position set right? I understand that the hon. Member for Perry Barr (Mr. C. Howell) did not and could not have received any remuneration whatever for his services.

Mr. Crookshank: I should not like to say anything further on this or similar cases before they have been investigated, because there are precedents.

Mr. J. Hynd: The right hon. Gentleman promised before the Recess that legislation would be brought in to put these matters in order. Has any progress been made with that? If not, can the right hon. Gentleman say when it is likely to be brought forward?

Mr. Crookshank: That is the intention. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] It is before the House now.

Mr. Delargy: Will the right hon. Gentleman introduce legislation enabling Members for Northern Ireland who have been legally elected to be released from prison and to take their seats here?

ELECTION PETITION TRIALS, NORTHERN IRELAND

Mr. Speaker: I have to acquaint the House that I have received the following Letter and Certificate from the judges appointed to try the Election Petition relating to the Election for the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

The Royal Courts of Justice (Ulster), BELFAST.

19th October, 1955.

The Right Honourable

The Speaker of the House of Commons.

Sir,

Constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone

In accordance with the provisions of Section 124 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, we transmit herewith our certificate in writing of our determinations upon the Petition of Lieut.-Colonel Robert George Grosvenor against the election of Mr. Philip Christopher Clarke as member for the above constituency, accompanied (as directed by Section 111 (6) of the Act) by a copy of the shorthand writers' transcript of the evidence given upon the hearing of the Petition and also by a copy of the shorthand writers' transcript of our judgment. It will be observed that we have made a few slight verbal corrections in the shorthand writers' transcripts.

Constituency of Mid-Ulster

The matter of the Petition of Mr. Charles Beattie against the return of Mr. Thomas James Mitchell as member for the constituency of Mid-Ulster was tried before us at Omagh within the said constituency on the 5th, 6th and 7th October, 1955. We propose to transmit to you the formal certificate of our determinations upon the Petition when we have received and have had an opportunity of checking the shorthand writers' transcripts.

Yours faithfully,

ARTHUR BLACK

CHARLES L. SHELL

Judges on the Rota for the Trial of Election Petitions.

To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

COURT for the trial of an ELECTION PETITION for the CONSTITUENCY OF FERMANAGH AND SOUTH TYRONE

BETWEEN ROBERT GEORGE GROSVENOR

Petitioner;

and

PHILIP CHRISTOPHER CLARKE Respondent.

WHEREAS an Election of a member to serve in the present Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland


for the Constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone was holden on the 26th day of May, 1955

AND WHEREAS the only candidates at the said Election were the above-named Robert George Grosvenor and Philip Christopher Clarke

AND WHEREAS the said Philip Christopher Clarke was returned by the Returning Officer as having been duly elected at the said Election

AND WHEREAS on the 17th day of June, 1955, the said Robert George Grosvenor presented a Petition to the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland in the Queen's Bench Division praying that it might be determined that the said Philip Christopher Clarke was not duly elected or returned and that the said Robert George Grosvenor was duly elected and ought to have been returned

AND WHEREAS the matter of the said Petition was tried before us at Enniskillen within the said Constituency on the 30th and 31st days of August, 1955, and the 1st and 2nd days of September, 1955

WE HEREBY CERTIFY that at the conclusion of the said trial we determined as follows:—

(a) that at the date of the said Election on the 26th day of May, 1955, the said Philip Christopher Clarke was incapable of being elected as a member of Parliament and was not duly elected or returned; and
(b) that the said Robert George Grosvenor was duly elected to serve in the present Parliament for the said Constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone and ought to have been returned.

Dated this 2nd day of September, 1955.

Arthur Black

Charles L. Shell

Judges on the Rota for the Trial of Election Petitions.

And the said Letter and Certificate were ordered to be entered in the Journals of this House.

Copy of Shorthand Writer's Notes laid upon the Table by Mr. SPEAKER.

3.50 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn): I beg to move,
That the Clerk of the Crown do attend this House forthwith with the last Return for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and amend the same by substituting the name of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert George Grosvenor for that of Philip Christopher Clarke as the Member returned for the said constituency.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Assuming that the Motion is debatable, I would suggest to the House that it would be in accordance with its traditions and with the solemn duty placed

upon it to preserve parliamentary democracy and the representative system, in a world in which these institutions are under grave attack all over the world, to reject the Motion which has just been moved. We have all listened with great interest to the report of the proceedings in the Queen's Bench Division in Northern Ireland, but they seem, I suppose, to most of us, if not to all of us, to be in plain contradiction of the actual facts of the situation.

Mr. Speaker: This House is not empowered to re-try a case which has been heard by the petition judges. The procedure in this matter is all laid down in the Representation of the People Act, 1949, an Act that binds the House as well as others whom it may concern, and it provides that the court is to determine if a Member or any other person was duly returned, and to certify the same in writing to the Speaker, and that the determination or certificate shall be final, to all intents and purposes.
The rest of the Section does not concern us. It provides for differences of opinion between judges, of which there seems to have been none here, and Section 124, from which I have quoted, provides in subsection (5) that the House of Commons on being informed by the Speaker of a certificate, shall order the certificate to be entered in the Journals and give the necessary directions for confirming or altering the Return or issuing a Writ for a new election or for carrying the determination into execution, as the circumstances may require.
So this Act places upon the House the duty at law, on receipt of a certificate, of proceeding to have the Return altered. In this case, I can myself see no relevant matter for debate at all.

Mr. Silverman: I do not think that any of us would seek for a moment to question that the decision of the Queen's Bench Division in Northern Ireland is not appealable in the House of Commons, and, as a judicial determination, it no doubt stands. Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman has moved a Motion, and unless the House accepts that Motion it cannot be acted upon. Since he has moved the Motion and the House has the right to pass it, one presumes that it also has the right, in its discretion, to refuse to pass it. Therefore, I am recommending that the House shall take that


course. Not that I wish to place in issue again any judicial finding of fact. Nor do I wish to argue that the Representation of the People Act, and those Sections to which you have drawn our attention, Sir, does not apply, but that Act, as I understand—and I think the right hon. Gentleman's Motion would be out of order unless I am right—while it declares the law, nevertheless leaves the sovereign discretion of this assembly unaffected.

Mr. Speaker: The Act to which I have just referred is an Act of Parliament assented to by both Houses and by the Crown, and the House is bound by it. The House has no power of its own volition lawfully to over-ride an Act of Parliament. The House of Commons, I suppose like anyone else, can break the law, but if anyone should keep the law of the land it is this House. I would personally urged upon the House that it ought to follow the law which, as recently as 1949, it enacted for these circumstances.

Mr. Silverman: While not in the least questioning one word of that, we come back, I think, to the undoubted position that the right hon. Gentleman has seen fit to move a Motion. If the right hon. Gentleman has seen fit to move a Motion, what he has done is to invite the House to agree with him in that Motion.

Mr. Speaker: It is clear that it is quite within the power of any hon. Member, when I put the Question and call for the "Ayes" and "Noes," to voice "No" and, if necessary, to divide the House. What I am saying is that I do not see that any discussion of the matter can be relevant.

Mr. Silverman: Mr. Silvermanrose—

Mr. A. Woodburn: May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on a point which you have just raised? There would seem to be in the possession of this House a very great power to reject a Member of Parliament if it has been declared that that person has been elected. It seems to me quite out of order that this House should have full power to reject a Member or accept a Member. Where he has been declared to be a Member, as far as I know, this House must expel him by formal Motion.

Mr. Speaker: I think that, though the House is at liberty to vote "No" when I put the Question, a Member who has been certified by the judges as the proper Member under the procedure laid down by the House is the Member. There is no power to exclude him from coming to the Table and taking his seat.

Mr. Silverman: Since it is not in doubt at all the Motion which the right hon. Gentleman has moved can be as well rejected by the House as accepted by it, since it is not in doubt that the House can divide, and since it is not in doubt that it is as lawful to vote "No" as it is to vote "Aye," does it not therefore follow that. if one is inviting the House to vote "No" rather than "Aye," it is not out of order to give reasons for that purpose?
That is all I am seeking to do. This is not the first occasion on which an election in this constituency has been considered by the House of Commons. On the last occasion, there was a Return and there was a Member declared elected—the very same Member who has now been declared to be disqualified by the Queen's Bench Division of Northern Ireland. The other candidate at that time was a gentleman whom the Queen's Bench Division in Northern Ireland, in contra-distinction to what the constituency itself thought, has decided is the Member. On the last occasion, that gentleman did not seek to challenge the election.

Mr. Speaker: All these things are outside what is relevant to this discussion. Perhaps I may say that in this matter I have not acted without consideration of the position or without consulting the precedents. It may assist the hon. Member if he turns to the House of Commons Debates for 1911, Volume XXIV, where he will find a case when Mr. Speaker Lowther was in the Chair and a similar Motion was moved after the trial of an election petition in Exeter, when the judges certified, in accordance with the Act then in force—which has been reproduced word for word in the present Act, by which we are bound—that a certain Member was returned. A Motion was made by the then Chief Whip to the same effect as that moved by the Chief Whip today. Mr. Morrell, whom some older


Members may remember in the House of Commons, begged to move,
That no directions be issued by this House to the Clerk of the Crown in the matter of the Exeter Election Petition. … 
Mr. Speaker then said:
I cannot accept that as an Amendment to the Motion. The Motion I have just read out follows as a natural consequence upon the report of the judges. Even if the hon. Member were successful in carrying this Amendment, and we were to postpone for a month or two months consideration of the matter, no power on earth could prevent the hon. Member for Exeter from taking his seat. The decision of the judges is final, and the mere fact that the House declines to alter the writ cannot prevent the hon. Gentleman from taking his seat."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st April, 1911; Vol. XXIV, c. 1253.]
So that is the position. After further argument, which was somewhat reminiscent of the present day, the Speaker said:
I am afraid I cannot possibly accept the view of the hon. Member. This House is not a Court of Appeal from the judges. Very much against the desire of the judges, and in spite of their protests, this House imposed upon His Majesty's judges the duty of determining the results of Election Petitions under the Act of 1868, and under that Act that determination of the judges is to be 'final for all intents and purposes'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st April, 1911; Vol. XXIV, c. 1254.]
Those are exactly the words used in the present Act.
He then goes on to say that there are other opportunities open to hon. Members if they wish to challenge the machinery which has been put in force by the Act. That is another matter and if the Motion before the House were a Bill to amend or repeal the relative Sections of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) is saying would be relevant. But that is not the question before the House. There is no such Bill or Motion before the House and, therefore, I am bound to rule that I can see nothing relevant to the Motion.
I feel that the House is bound by the words of its own Statute—
… on being informed by the Speaker of a certificate … shall order the certificate and report … to be entered in their Journals and shall give the necessary direction for … altering the return,… 
The question that was put to me by the right hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) was also answered on that occasion. Mr. Speaker Lowther then said:
If the Motion was negatived I should say the House was commiting an illegal act.

The House can break the law, but the House is the last institution in this country that ought to break the law."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 21st April, 1911; Vol. xxiv, c. 1256.]
That is very much what I have just said.
He went on to say that he would persuade the House to obey the law and act in accordance with practice. I am in exactly the same position and I advise the House to accept the law to which it was a consenting party and which is an Act of Parliament passed by both Houses. On constitutional grounds and every other appropriate ground, I think that the House should strictly follow the procedure which it has laid down.

Mr. Woodburn: On a point of order. Would you, Mr. Speaker, be good enough to consider, with great respect to the Ruling of Mr. Speaker Lowther and to your own Ruling, whether it is a proper procedure whereby there is a Motion asking the House to do something which it has no power to refuse to do? It seems to me that the law ensures that if someone becomes a Member of the House of Commons he ought immediately to become a Member when a judicial judgment is made by your order to the Clerk of the Crown.

Mr. Speaker: I think there is force in what the right hon. Gentleman says, but he will appreciate that sometimes the result of an Election petition is not as simple and as clear as the one we have today, namely, that AB was not elected but CD was. There are sometimes cases where it is necessary to issue a new writ for a by-election and, in those circumstances, by matter of practice Writs are not issued without Mr. Speaker obtaining the instructions of the House to that effect. Similarly, when we order an officer like the Clerk of the Crown to attend and put right the Return, it has always been the practice to do that by a formal Motion. That is the reason, but I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that, as a result of the Act to which I have referred and the certificate of the judges, the hon. Member named in the determination is the Member of Parliament for that constituency and nothing that the House can do can alter that.

Mr. Silverman: Mr. Silvermanrose—

Mr. J. McGovern: Am I entitled to give reasons why I cannot support this Motion, Sir?

Mr. Silverman: On a point of order. I am not quite sure in what position the House now finds itself. I originally arose to explain to the House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) now wishes to do, the reasons why I cannot support this Motion. There then supervened a number of points of order and discussion as to what was in order and what was not in order. If that is now completed, perhaps I may be allowed to complete what I have to say.

Mr. Speaker: I interrupted the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) when he was giving his reasons because he seemed to me to be raising issues which were settled by the Act of 1949 and by the determination of the judges and, therefore, these matters being no longer in issue, what he was saying was not relevent to the question before the House.

Mr. Silverman: The question before the House is whether we should pass the Motion moved by the Government Chief Whip. I do not wish the House to pass the Motion. I quite recognise what the legal position is. I quite recognise that the Queen's Bench Division of Northern Ireland has declared the defeated candidate to be elected and that the House of Commons cannot resolve itself into a court of appeal against what, apart from the Statute, might appear to be an absurd and anomalous situation in which the defeated candidate, the man with the smaller number of votes, is declared to have the confidence of the electors who elected him.
I am not in the least seeking to challenge the judicial effectiveness of that decision. What I am saying is that the result is so absurd and so anomalous that if the House of Commons has any choice in the matter—and I gather from the fact that the Motion was in order that we have a choice in the matter—we ought not to accept it. There is an alternative procedure—and that was an analogy; it was only an analogy of which I was seeking to remind the House a little while ago—in this very same question, this very same constituency and concerning these very same two persons, when the House decided on a Government Motion to declare the seat vacant and to issue a new Writ.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is confusing the two cases. The present case concerns Fermanagh and Tyrone and the procedure followed was not that followed in the second case. This is merely a revision by an Election petition relating to the General Election and not to any by-election.

Mr. Silverman: I speak subject to correction, but my impression is that we are dealing with the same constituency and the same two persons.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speakerindicated dissent.

Mr. Silverman: Well, I think that we are. Later in the debate—if I am wrong—the misconception can be cleared up. but at the moment I remain of the opinion that we are dealing with the exact case of the constituency, and the same two persons as we dealt with last time. Even if we are not, the principle is admittedly exactly the same in both cases.
I am saying that, instead of accepting the advice of the Government to pass the Motion which has been proposed, the House would be better advised to reject that Motion and to vote instead for a new Writ to be issued for a new election to be held—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is where I find it difficult, perhaps, to convince the hon. Member of my position in the matter. The course which he is urging the House to adopt would, in fact, break the law to which the House has agreed; because the law enjoins upon this House by name the duty, when the judges have certified their determination, the altering of the Return to give effect to that determination. The hon. Member is asking the House to do something which the House, by Statute, has debarred itself from doing.

Mr. Grimond: May I ask for information? I understand that at the end of this debate, if it is permitted to go on, the Question will be put from the Chair, and you, Mr. Speaker, will be inviting those hon. Members who wish to do so to indicate their dissent to this Motion; in fact, you will be inviting them to break the law. If the House has put itself into that position, will that be the result? If so, the sooner the law is amended the better.

Mr. Speaker: I shall have to put the Question, but I think that I have indicated in the clearest terms at my command how I think the decision should go as a matter of law—not on the merits, because that has nothing to do with me. But I am inviting the House to maintain the integrity of its own Statute.

Mr. Silverman: There is, surely—I hesitate to use the word—some confusion here. I understood, Mr. Speaker, that you intervened just now to remind the House that if it were to adopt the course I was recommending to it, that would be against the law, and, therefore, it had no power to do that. If that be right, then it must equally be against the law for the House to vote, "No" on the Motion which the right hon. Gentleman has just proposed, because it is exactly the same law that would be broken. Further, it is conceded that the right hon. Gentleman can legitimately move the Motion which he moved, that it is in order for him to do so, and is not illegal.
At the beginning of the discussion, Sir, you informed right hon. and hon. Members that it would be perfectly proper for them to vote, "Aye" or, "No." If it would be proper for them to vote "No" when voting, "No" would be illegal, it would surely be equally proper for them to recommend an alternative course if that alternative course were equally illegal.

Mr. Speaker: I find that the hon. Member is leading me into rather devious paths. I think I can best indicate my own attitude to his ingenious argument by reminding him that two blacks do not make a white. Though it is by form and procedure possible to say, "No" to this Motion, and to reject it, still it is a Motion of a peculiar character and to which I suggest the issue is already foregone by previous legislation of the House.

Mr. Silverman: We are grateful to you, Sir, for reminding us that two blacks do not make a white. That is exactly why I am against the Motion. It may be a very wrong thing for a constituency to elect by a majority of votes to the House of Commons a man who is legally and constitutionally incapable of being so elected. That is one black. But you do not clear that black away by setting up in its place an even much blacker thing, that the defeated candidate shall be declared to have been elected—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The second "black" to which the hon. Member is drawing my attention is that the Court of the Queen's Bench Division of Northern Ireland has declared the candidate unsuccessful in the first Election to be the duly elected Member. In doing so, it is following the procedure which this House has laid down in the Act, and. therefore, the hon. Member cannot say that that is in any way an illegal act on the part of the Court or anyone else. That is the procedure laid down by this House.

Mr. Silverman: I am not arguing that the Queen's Bench Division of Northern Ireland was wrong in law. I am only saying that the decision is nonsensical in its result, and, for that reason, the House of Commons ought not to accept it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is not entitled to question the result. That is not before us—

Mr. Silverman: Of course it is before us.

Mr. Speaker: That is not before us. The question is that we follow the procedure, which we have laid down for ourselves quite clearly, of asking the Clerk of the Crown to amend the Return. That is the question before the House.

Mr. Silverman: I will not trouble the House now, but will invite them to consider at some other time whether it is right to leave the position in this way. But the position, as I understand it, is this. There is an Act of Parliament which lays a duty upon the Divisional Court in Northern Ireland to decide on what was, in fact, the result of an Election held within its jurisdiction; that when it has done so, that has no effect at all unless the House of Commons passes some such Motion as--[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—well, let me put it the other way; when it has done so this House of Commons is bound by law to pass a Motion which is in accordance with that decision. If the result of that is that there is no effective Election at all; that the majority is disfranchised, and the minority sends a man to represent the majority; that the constituency ceases to have a man of its own choice, or the opportunity to have a man of its own choice, sitting, speaking and voting for it in the House of Commons, then, as the law at present stands, the


House of Commons is completely impotent in the matter. If that be so, the sooner we change the position the better.

Mr. Speaker: All that may be in order on another Motion, but it is not in order on the Question before the House.

Mr. McGovern: I do not rise to contest in any way the legality of the position in this case and it is probably true, as laid down by you, Mr. Speaker, that we have no alternative in the matter but to accept the decision of the High Court. But I would say that if there is no provision in the Act, it is time that there was some alteration of the Act to give an area the opportunity of refusal by the authorities to allow candidates to be nominated who are men in prison and felons; and therefore avoid a decision of the High Court, and the opportunity for an area to select people ineligible to come to this House. I would say, further, that in this case it does not appear so. But, because the two persons who are in prison are, I think, tied not to come to this House to represent the areas, therefore the areas are being disfranchised to that extent.
I think that, in these days when democracy is on trial and being assailed throughout the world, it is the duty of the country to see that the utmost protection is given. In my opinion, there is room for a change in the law in order to

prevent people from being nominated at all if they are not eligible, instead of the authorities conniving to accept nominations of people who are not entitled to sit in this House.

Mr. Speaker: All that would be in order on a Motion to alter the law, but such a Motion is not before the House. I hope that there will be no further discussion on those lines.

Mr. Delargy: I have listened most attentively, and, if I may say so, most patiently for the last forty minutes to all the points that have been made and to the answers which you, Mr. Speaker, have given. There is one short question to which I would like a short answer: why has this Motion been moved at all? None of us knows, since we cannot vote on it.

Mr. Speaker: I think I explained that the Motion is to order the attendance of an officer called the Clerk of the Crown, and that that is customarily a matter for a Motion. I agree that there are matters here for our future practice which could be looked at, but it has always been considered courteous, if we order the attendance of someone else, to have a Motion to that effect.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 280, Noes 99.

Division No. 29.]
AYES
[4.20 p.m.


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Boyle, Sir Edward
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry


Aitken, W. T.
Braine, B. R.
Deedes, W. F.


Alport, C. J. M.
Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Digby, S. Wingfield


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Brooman-White, R. C.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Doughty, C. J. A.


Arbuthnot, John
Bryan, P.
Drayson, G. B.


Armstrong, G. W.
Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. C. T.
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)


Ashton, H.
Bullus, Wing Commander, E. E.
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.


Astor, Hon. J. J.
Burden, F. F. A.
Duthie, W. S.


Atkins, H. E.
Butcher, Sir Herbert
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir. A.(Warwick &amp; L'm'tn)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Carr, Robert
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)


Baldwin, A. E.
Cary, Sir Robert
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.


Balniel, Lord
Channon, H.
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn


Banks, Col. C.
Chichester-Clark, R.
Errington, Sir Eric


Barber, Anthony
Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Erroll, F. J.


Barlow, Sir John
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Farey-Jones, F. W.


Barter, John
Cooper-Key, E. M.
Fell, A.


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Fisher, Nigel


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Corfield, capt. F. V.
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Fort, R.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hn. H. F. C
Foster, John


Bennett, Dr. Reginald
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Crouch, R. F.
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)


Bidgood, J. C.
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Freeth, D. K.


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Crowder, Petre (Rulslip—Northwood)
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Cunningham, S. Knox
Gammans, L. D.


Black, C. W.
Currle, G. B. H.
Garner-Evans, E. H.


Bossom, Sir A. C.
Dance, J. C. G.
George, J. C. (Pollok)


Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)
Davidson, viscountess
Glover, D.


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
Davies, Rt. H on. Clement (Montgomery)
Godber, J. B.




Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Raikes, Sir Victor


Cough, C. F. H.
Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)
Rawlinson, P. A. G.


Cower, H. R.
Linstead, Sir H. N.
Redmayne, M.


Graham, Sir Fergus
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Remnant, Hon. P.


Grant, W. (Woodside)
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Renton, D. L. M.


Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich
Longden, Gilbert
Ridsdale, J. E.


Green, A.
Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.
Robertson, Sir David


Gresham Cooke, R.
Lucas Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Grimond, J.
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford &amp; Chiswick)
Robson-Brown, W.


Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
McAdden, S. J.
Roper, Sir Harold


Gurden, Harold
McCallum, Major Sir Duncan
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Russell, R. S.


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.


Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
McKibbin, A. J.
Shepherd, William


Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Smyth, Brig. J. C. (Norwood)


Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Soames, Capt. C.


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain (Enfield, W.)
Spearman, A. C. M.


Hay, John




Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Speir, R. M.


Heath, Edward
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeen, W.)


Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Maddan, Martin
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Stevens, Geoffrey


Hill, John (S. Norfolk)
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Holt, A. F.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry
Marples, A. E.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Horns by-Smith, Miss M. P.
Marshall, Douglas
Storey, S.


Horobin, Sir Ian
Mathew, R.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence
Maude, Angus
Studholme, H. G.


Howard, John (Test)
Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Mawby, R. L.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Medlicott, Sir Frank
Thomas, Rt. Hn. J. P. L. (Hereford)


Hughes, Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Molson, A. H. E.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Hurd, A. R.
Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh.W.)
Moore, Sir Thomas
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.


Hyde, Montgomery
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Iremonger, T. L.
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Nairn, D. L. S.
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Neave, Alrey
Touche, Sir Gordon


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Nicholls, Harmar
Turner, H. F. L.


Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Nugent, G. R. H.
Vickers, Miss J. H.


Jones, A. (Hall Green)
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Wade, D. W.


Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Kaberry, D.
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Keegan, D.
Osborne, C.
Wall, Major Patrick


Kerby, Capt. H. B.
Page, R. G.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Kerr, H. W.
Panned, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Kershaw, J. A.
Partridge, E.
Webbe, Sir H.


Kirk, P. M.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith &amp; Border)


Lagden, G. W.
Peyton, J. W. W.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Lambert, Hon. G.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Langford-Holt, J. A.
Pitman, I. J.
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Leather, E. H. C.
Pott, H. P.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Leavey, J. A.
Powell, J. Enoch
Woollam, John Victor


Leburn, W. G.
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)



Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.
Profumo, J. D.
Mr. Robert Allan and




Colonel Harrison.




NOES


Allaun, F. (Salford, E.)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Griffiths, William (Exchange)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Cullen, Mrs. A.
Hamilton, W. W.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hayman, F. H.


Beswick, F.
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Healey, Denis


Blackburn, F.
Deer, C.
Houghton, Douglas


Blenkinsop, A.
Dodds, N. N.
Howell, Denis (All Saints)


Blyton, W. R.
Donnelly, D. L.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)


Bowles, F. G.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Boyd, T. c.
Fernyhough, E.
Hunter, A. E.


Brockway, A. F.
Fienburgh, W.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Fletcher, Eric
Irving, S. (Dartford)


Burke, W. A.
Forman, J. C.
Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holbn&amp;St.Pncs,S.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Freeman, Peter
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Gooch, E, G.
King, Dr. H. M.


Clunie, J.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Ledger, R. J.


Collins, V. J.(Shoreditch &amp; Finsbury)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Lee, Frederick (Newton)







Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Owen, W. J.
Swingler, S. T.


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Padley, W. E.
Sylvester, G. O.


Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Parker, J.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Lewis, Arthur
Peart, T. F.
Usborne, H. C.


Lindgren, G. S.
Proctor, W. T.
Viant, S. P.


Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Rankin, John
Warbey, W. N.


Logan, D. G.
Reeves, J.
Watkins, T. E.


McGhee, H. G.
Reid, William
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Mahon, S.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Wigg, George


Mason, Roy
Royle, C.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Messer, Sir F.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Willey, Frederick


Monslow, W.
Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Moody, A. S.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Moss, R.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Skeffington, A. M.



Oram, A. E.
Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Oswald, T.
Snow, J. W.
Mr. McGovern and Mr. Delargy.


Question put and agreed to.

The Clerk of the Crown thereupon attended at the Table and amended the Return accordingly.

Mr. Speaker: I have further to report to the House that I have received the following Letter and Certificate from the judges appointed to try the Election Petition relating to the Election for Mid-Ulster.

The Royal Courts of Justice (Ulster) BELFAST.

21st October, 1955.

The Right Honourable

The Speaker of the House of Commons.

Sir,

Constituency of Mid-Ulster

In accordance with the provisions of Section 124 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, we transmit herewith our certificate in writing of our determination upon the Petition of Mr. Charles Beattie against the election of Mr. Thomas James Mitchell as member for the above constituency, accompanied (as directed by Section 111 (6) of the Act) by a copy of the shorthand writers' transcript of the evidence given upon the hearing of the Petition and also by a copy of their transcript of our judgment. It will be observed that we have made a few slight verbal corrections in the shorthand writers' transcripts.

Yours faithfully,

ARTHUR BLACK CHARLES L. SHELL

Judges on the Rota for the Trial of Election Petitions.

To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

COURT for the trial of an ELECTION PETITION for the CONSTITUENCY OF MID-ULSTER

BETWEEN CHARLES BEATTIE Petitioner;

and

THOMAS JAMES MITCHELL Respondent.

WHEREAS an Election of a member to serve in the present Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the Constituency of Mid-Ulster was holden on the 11th day of August. 1955

AND WHEREAS the only candidates at the said Election were the above-named Charles Beattie and Thomas James Mitchell

AND WHEREAS the said Thomas James Mitchell was returned by the Returning Officer as having been duly elected at the said Election

AND WHEREAS on the 25th day of August, 1955, the said Charles Beattie presented a Petition to the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland in the Queen's Bench Division praying that it might be determined that the said Thomas James Mitchell was not duly elected or returned and that the said Charles Beattie was duly elected and ought to have been returned.

AND WHEREAS the matter of the said Petition was tried before us at Omagh within the said Constituency on the 5th, 6th and 7th days of October, 1955

WE HEREBY CERTIFY that at the conclusion of the said trial we determined as follows:—

(a) that at the date of the said Election on the 11th day of August, 1955, the said Thomas James Mitchell was incapable of being elected as a member of Parliament and was not duly elected or returned; and
(b) that the said Charles Beattie was duly elected to serve in the present Parliament for the said Constituency of Mid-Ulster and ought to have been returned.

DATED this 7th day of October, 1955.

ARTHUR BLACK.

CHARLES L. SHELL.

Judges on the Rota for the Trial of Election Petitions.

And the said Letter and Certificate were ordered to be entered in the Journals of this House.

Copy of Shorthand Writer's Notes laid upon the Table by Mr. SPEAKER.

Mr. Buchan-Hepburn: I beg to move,
That the Clerk of the Crown do attend this House forthwith with the last Return for Mid-Ulster and amend the same by substituting the name of Charles Beattie for that of Thomas James Mitchell as the Member returned for the said constituency.

Mr. S. Silverman: I do not propose to detain the House by going through all the discussion and argument that we had upon the previous Motion. It is obvious that the two matters are on exactly the same footing. If I had my way I would defeat this Motion upon the same grounds and for the same reasons as I advised the House not to accept the previous one. I do not propose to delay the House by further discussion.

The Clerk of the Crown thereupon attended at the Table and amended the Return accordingly.

SWEARING IN OF MEMBERS

Mr. Speaker: Will Members desiring to take their seats please come to the Table?

The hon. and gallant Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Lieut.-Colonel Robert George Grosvenor) came to the Table to be sworn.

Mr. Delargy: I spy strangers.

Mr. C. Pannell: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There can be no point of order until the hon. and gallant Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone has taken his seat.

Mr. Pannell: I thought he had to have sponsors.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is asking about sponsors. This gentleman was elected at the General Election.

The following Member took and subscribed the Oath:

Lieut.-Colonel Robert George Grosvenor, for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

New Member Sworn:

Charles Beattie, esquire, for Mid-Ulster.

Mr. Speaker: I think I should point out to the House that when an hon. Member has been called upon to take his seat it is a matter of Privilege and there should be no interruption of his progress to the Table. I gather that the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) wondered why the hon. and gallant Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone had no sponsors while the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster had. The reason was that the first of these hon. Members who appeared before us is presumed by the judges' determination to have been elected at the General Election, and no hon. Member elected at a General Election requires sponsors, whereas after a by-election it has become the custom of the House to require sponsors.

Mr. Pannell: Thank you for your explanation, Mr. Speaker. May I ask whether the hon. and gallant Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone picks up his Parliamentary salary plus £2 a day from the date of the Election?

Mr. Speaker: I do not know about the position in the meantime.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Crookshank.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Crookshank: I beg to move,
That—

(1) save as provided in paragraphs (2) and (5) of this Order, Government Business shall have precedence at every sitting for the remainder of the Session;
(2) Public Bills, other than Government Bills shall have precedence over Government Business on the following Fridays, namely, 25th November, 9th December, 3rd and 17th February, 2nd and 16th March, 13th and 27th April, 11th May and 15th June;
(3) on and after Friday 13th April, Public Bills other than Government Bills shall be arranged on the Order Paper in the following order:—Consideration of Lords Amendments, Third Readings, Considerations of Reports not already entered upon, adjourned Proceedings on Consideration, Bills in progress in Committee. Bills appointed for Committee and Second Readings;
(4) the ballot for unofficial Members' Bills shall be held on Thursday 3rd November, under arrangements to be made by Mr. Speaker, and the Bills shall be presented at the commencement of Public Business on Wednesday 9th November;
(5) unofficial Members' Notices of Motions and unofficial Members' Bills shall have precedence in that order over Government Business on the following Fridays, namely, 18th November, 2nd and 16th December, 10th and 24th February, 9th and 23rd March, 20th April, 4th May and 8th June; and no Notices of Motions shall be handed in for any of these Fridays in anticipation of the ballots under paragraph (6) of this Order;
(6) ballots for precedence of unofficial Members' Notices of Motions shall be held after Questions on the following Wednesdays, namely, 2nd, 16th and 30th November, 1st, 8th and 22nd February, 7th March, 11th and 18th April and 16th May.
(7) until after Wednesday 9th November, no unofficial Member shall give notice of Motion for leave to bring in a Bill under Standing Order No. 12 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business) or for presenting a Bill under Standing Order No. 35 (Presentation or introduction and first reading).

This Motion deals with Private Members' time. It is exactly on the same lines as that of last year, and follows the recommendations of the Select Committee of 1946—ten days for Bills and ten days for Motions. The book for the Ballot for Bills will be available on Tuesday and Wednesday, 1st and 2nd November, and the first Ballot for Motions will be on 2nd November for Friday, 18th November. I shall be only too happy to try to answer any questions which any hon. Member likes to ask but I think the Motion is perfectly clear.

Orders of the Day — VALIDATION OF ELECTIONS (No. 2) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — Clause 1.—(VALIDATION OF ELECTION OF AND INDEMNITY FOR CHRISTOPHER JOHN HOLLAND-MARTIN, ESQUIRE.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

4.43 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: On a point of order. I had an Amendment on the Order Paper.

The Chairman: It is out of order.

Mr. Fletcher: This Clause is in two parts. One seeks to declare that a gentleman who was disqualified when elected shall be deemed to have been duly qualified and the other seeks to release him from the penalties which he would suffer by reason of having taken his seat. My Amendment aims at deleting part of the Clause by leaving out from "Esquire" in page 1, line 5, to "is" in line 11.

The Chairman: As I have said, the Amendment is out of order and we therefore cannot deal with it.

Mr. Fletcher: With great respect, when the Committee is considering a Bill of this kind, which falls into two distinct parts, the Committee ought to consider whether it should deal with one part and not the other or whether it should deal with both parts. Surely it is depriving the Committee of very important rights on this very important subject if a simple Amendment of this kind cannot be considered by the Committee. With great respect, I invite you, Sir Charles, to indicate why the Amendment is out of order and why the Committee should apparently be deprived of considering separately the two distinct questions.

The Chairman: I thought that the hon. Gentleman understood why it was out of order. It is out of order because it does not make sense.

Mr. Fletcher: With great respect, that is a point with which I can deal quite


simply. In my submission it would make perfect sense if this short Bill were to read, instead of reading as printed.
Christopher John Holland-Martin, Esq., is hereby discharged, freed and indemnified from all penal consequences whatsover incurred by him by sitting or voting as a Member of that House while holding the said office.

The Chairman: That is the whole point. It does not make sense if those words are left in.

Mr. Fletcher: With great respect, it might well be necessary to add consequential words.

The Chairman: That is the whole point. They are not on the Paper.

Mr. Fletcher: With great respect, if this Amendment were carried I would ask your leave to move another Amendment.

The Chairman: I am not calling the hon. Member's Amendment because it is out of order. We are on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill. The Committee cannot discuss an Amendment which is out of order.

Mr. Fletcher: Surely it has always been the case that, when the sense of an Amendment is perfectly obvious, it is not ruled out of order merely because of some technical or verbal point in its terms. I submit with respect that the sense of the Amendment is perfecly clear. If, as a result of the Amendment being carried, some further wording has to be added in order to make sense, it can be added.

The Chairman: That is true, but I am here to carry out the Standing Orders of the House, and an Amendment which is not complete without a consequential Amendment is out of order.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Further to that point of order. I am not quite sure that I understood the discussion but I gather that the Amendment is out of order because it retains the words at the end, "while holding the said office."

The Chairman: That is the point.

Mr. Silverman: if that is so, is there not a misunderstanding? "While holding the said office" does not mean while holding the office of Member of Parliament. It means while holding the office which disqualifies him from being a

Member. It is not for me to say what is in order and what is not—that is the prerogative of the Chair—but if an Amendment were held to be out of order because of a misinterpretation of the meaning of the words "while holding the said office," possibly the question might be reconsidered.
I take it that what my hon. Friend sought to do was to say that while we shall not seek to defy the Representation of the People Act by declaring a man elected who is declared by the Act not to be capable of being elected, so defying the plain direction of Mr. Speaker earlier this afternoon, nevertheless we ought to relieve him of any financial penalty; and I think my hon. Friend's Amendment was well designed to achieve that purpose if the Committee thought fit to accept it.

The Chairman: That may well be so, but it is not in order. I am here simply to carry out the rules of the House, and I cannot call Amendments which are not in order.

Mr. Fletcher: In order to facilitate business and to give the Committee an opportunity to consider a vital point, may I ask your leave, Sir Charles, to put down a manuscript Amendment, to add, at the end of line 13,
while holding an office of profit under the Crown"?

The Chairman: Even if I were willing to do so, I could not do so because I have already called the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Fletcher: The last thing I want to do is to argue with the Chair. We all realise that you are bound by rules of order, Sir Charles, but surely I am not asking too much in asking you to facilitate a discussion prompted by the Amendment, the sense of which is obvious and the fault in which can easily be cured by a consequential Amendment. That would enable the Committee to consider an important point which arises on the Bill.

The Chairman: That is not the point. I simply carry out the orders which I am given and if I were to do what the hon. Member wishes I should not be carrying out my duties. I cannot do it.

Mr. Silverman: The Question before the Committee is, That the Clause stand part of the Bill. I suppose it would be


in order to address the Committee with a view to persuading it that the Clause should not stand part of the Bill.

The Chairman: Certainly. That is the debate now.

Mr. Fletcher: May I address you, Sir Charles, on the subject, That the Clause stand part of the Bill, and put to you the arguments which I should have put had the Amendment been called? They are inevitably bound up with this question.
While having the greatest respect for the Ruling which you have just given, I must protest at the way in which the Government have treated the House and the Committee in our consideration of the Bill. You will recollect, Sir Charles, that the Second Reading of the Bill was moved by the Attorney-General on 27th July, in very curious circumstances. That was two or three days before the House rose for the Recess and on an occasion when a very important statement was expected from the Prime Minister about the Four-Power Conference at Geneva, to hear which statement the whole House was impatiently waiting.
It was a very considerable indulgence to the Government that, after protests had been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) and others, and with considerable misgivings about the propriety of doing so, the House agreed to the Second Reading of the Bill. As the result of the protest, the Leader of the House agreed that the Committee stage and subsequent proceedings on the Bill should be postponed. Therefore, this is really the first opportunity we have had, either as the House or in Committee, to consider the merits of the Bill.
A farcical situation exists in regard to the disqualification of Members of Parliament, the validity of certain elections, and the Government's refusal to validate other elections. The proceedings which we witnessed this afternoon show a degree of inconsistency almost unbelievable in a democratic assembly. On one afternoon we have had before us three cases of gentlemen elected by a majority in their constituencies, in two of which cases the successful candidates are regarded as disqualified, their election has been declared invalid, and the defeated candidates have taken the seats as Members of the House.
The third case is of a gentleman who was equally disqualified, but whom the Government are inviting us to declare duly elected, notwithstanding the illegalities attending his election.
The Attorney-General must explain the attitude of the Government. A whole range of matters disqualifies persons from being elected to the House of Commons. I hope we shall hear from the Attorney-General when the Government intend to make progress with the House of Commons Disqualification Bill, which has been presented and of which the Second Reading has not yet taken place. The whole of the matter is in considerable chaos.
The Bill is concerned with Mr. John Holland-Martin who, like the other two gentlemen who were elected by majority vote in Mid-Ulster and Fermanagh and South Tyrone respectively, was disqualified, after his election, from being a Member of Parliament. Whatever we may think of the morals of Mr. Mitchell and the others who were elected in Northern Ireland, we must agree that they were elected for very special reasons which appealed to their constituents, who well knew of the disqualification of the candidates whom they were seeking to elect. Notwithstanding that fact, the views of the majority of those electors have been disregarded and the minority candidates have been declared elected.

The Chairman: I am reluctant to stop the hon. Gentleman but he is now dealing with matters with which we have finished. We are dealing with one particular individual now.

Mr. Fletcher: I mentioned the other cases only to point the contrast that exists when we come to the case of Mr. Holland-Martin, who was equally disqualified from being elected a Member of the House. He held an office of profit under the Crown in circumstances which, as I think the Attorney-General himself has recognised, ought to have made it obvious to him and to anybody he took the trouble to consult that he was debarred from election.
He was a Member of the local Board of Directors of the Bank of New Zealand, and he had held that office—a paid office—since April, 1950. At the time of the General Election he had not taken any trouble to consider his legal position, and,


according to his own statement, it was apparently in quite fortuitous circumstances that it occurred to him that his acceptance of that paid office disqualified him. Yet, in contradistinction to what has occurred about the election of the representatives from Northern Ireland, the Government have introduced this Bill to validate his election.
We are considering whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill. I hoped to accede to the suggestion of the Government about indemnification in respect of all the penal consequences which Mr. Holland-Martin could suffer as the result of taking his seat while disqualified. We do not quarrel with that at all, but it seems to me and to some of my hon. Friends most inconsistent and anomalous, especially in view of what has happened earlier this afternoon, that the Government should seek to validate this election by retrospective action and to declare valid what was quite obviously invalid at the time. I am sure that you will appreciate, Sir Charles, my Amendment having been declared out of order, that it is difficult for me to secure the objective I hoped to achieve, namely, to remove the penalties while retaining the invalidity of the election.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: We should have an explanation from the Attorney-General before we agree to pass the Clause. There are doubts in my mind whether Mr. Holland-Martin really held an office of profit under the Crown. A committee took evidence, and came to the conclusion that his being a local director of the Bank of New Zealand disqualified him. But it is common knowledge that other bank directors holding positions in the banking world far more lucrative than that of a local director of the Bank of New Zealand are not disqualified.
We know, for example, that quite a large number of occupants of the Government Front Bench immediately become bank directors when they go out of office. I do not remember any doubt being entertained about the present Prime Minister who, when he went into Opposition, became a director of one of the "Big Five." I do not understand why a director of one of the "Big Five"—earning a very lucrative salary—can carry on in this House and not be regarded as

holding an office of profit under the Crown while this hon. Member, who is a bank director in a very small way, comes under the disqualification of the Act. I should like the Attorney-General to explain why a bank director getting only £550 or so per annum from the New Zealand Bank is disqualified whereas an hon. Member who is a director of one of the "Big Five"—who may be getting a salary of anything from £4,000 to £5,000 a year—is allowed to continue without being subject to any of the penalties in the Act.
Then, Sir Charles, this is a case rather different from the previous cases which we discussed in Bills presented to the House before the Recess. In those cases it was pointed out that none of the hon. Members had really made any profit from the positions they held whilst being Members of Parliament. This hon. Gentleman did. In effect, what we are doing by passing this Clause is to confirm the election of an hon. Member in circumstances which have changed very considerably since his electors voted him into the House of Commons last May.
I submit that the matter should be left to the decision of the electors. What we are now doing is to say that in the circumstances of October, 1955, we, as the House of Commons, are prepared to declare this hon. Member elected, but the circumstances in May and October are entirely different. It is not for us to judge, but for this hon Gentleman's constituents. He was returned in an entirely different situation. The Government went to the country and he was elected on the assumption that he was being sent here to continue what is called "Tory prosperity"; but the Tory prosperity for which his constituents voted at the last Election has been proved to be an entire myth.
This matter should be decided by a new election. If we are to carry the principle of democracy to its logical conclusion I see no reason why this hon. Gentleman, who has been holding an office of profit under the Crown, should not go back to his constituents and ask whether they want to elect him in the circumstances of October, 1955. Circumstances today are so very different that it is conceivable that his constituents might say, "Oh, no, this Tory prosperity that we voted for in May has become a myth and has no longer any foundation at all," and


that instead of voting for an hon. Member to provide more houses it was being asked of them to return the hon. Gentleman to vote for reducing the housing subsidy.
In all these circumstances I believe that the democratic thing would be to say that this should be decided by the hon. Gentleman's constituents. He is entitled to go to his electors and ask whether they wish him to represent them in a different set of circumstances, when the Government are standing not for a policy of prosperity but for what we think is a policy not in the interests of the people.

Mr. Hector Hughes: I submit that this Clause should not stand part of the Bill for the following reasons. One is that a very grave situation has disclosed itself in this House both before and after the Recess relating to a number of electoral irregularities which have had to be rectified. This Clause seeks to rectify one such an irregularity in a very peculiar set of circumstances.
My second reason for opposing this Clause is that the gentleman in question is involved as a bank director. He comes before this House and says that he did not know that in standing for membership of this House whilst occupying the position of a director of the Bank of New Zealand he was committing an irregularity. Such a plea might possibly be accepted in the case of an ignorant man, but is it right for this House to accept it and to embody it in a Clause of this kind in the case of a man who is, presumably, educated and who probably knows the limits and boundaries of the office he occupies? He knows whether or not it is an office of profit, yet he stands for election to this House, and this Clause seeks to regularise the position.
That brings me to my third reason. This gentleman has put himself in the position of gambling with his status. It looks very much as if he took the chance of being elected or not elected to this House. If he were not elected he would probably have retained his position as a director of the Bank of New Zealand; if he were elected he would then come before the House and make this ad misericordiam plea, saying, "I did not know that it was an office of profit—please rectify my position." That is done by means of this Clause.
I submit that that is the kind of thing which this House ought not to allow. This is not the kind of Clause that ought to be drafted and brought before the House to meet the position. I say that it is wrong. I support the argument propounded by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes); this is indeed a matter which should be decided, not by a Clause of this kind but by the constituents who voted for this hon. Gentleman. I therefore oppose the Clause. I say it is wrong. It is ethically wrong and wrong in practice. It is constitutionally wrong, and for every reason I hope that the House will reject it.

Mr. S. Silverman: Like all my hon. Friends who have so far spoken, I should, had this Clause been confined to relieving Mr. Holland-Martin from the very heavy financial consequences of what has taken place, have been happy to support it. I should have supported it because I think that we all recognise that although Mr. Holland-Martin may have been negligent—I do not say that he was—still, whether negligent or not, he acted by inadvertence and in complete good faith. I think, therefore, that the House is quite right to relieve him of the many penal consequences which he himself might have to bear. The House has power to do that, and has power to do that without doing more. Since we recognise that he acted in good faith we should be right to do so much.
If the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) had been called and had been accepted, it would, in my submission, have had the effect which he wanted and which would have enabled me and some of my hon. Friends to support the Clause. But it has not been called, and the Committee, therefore, has not expressed any opinion about it, and we are left with the choice only of passing the Clause or rejecting it as a whole. That is a pity, but it is the only choice now left to the Committee, and, having that choice to make, I feel bound to advise the Committee to reject the Clause.

Mr. Hector Hughes: In view of what my hon. Friend has said about good faith, I should like to make it clear that when I referred to Mr. Holland-Martin gambling with his chances of getting into this House I was not imputing bad faith


to him. I said that he had put himself in the position of appearing to gamble with his chances of winning the seat or not and retaining his directorship or not. I did not impugn his good faith at all.

Mr. Silverman: I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend did not impugn Mr. Holland-Martin's good faith, any more than the rest of us have done. But we are still left in the position of deciding whether we are, therefore, to treat the Act of Parliament which declares Mr. Holland-Martin incapable of ever having been elected as though it had not been passed. With respect to the Committee, to the House and to any other decision which may at any other time have been taken, we are in very grave danger of making ourselves in these matters the laughing stock of the country and of the world.
It is all very well to say that some breaches of a statute are trivial and that others are substantial. It may well be so. But if that were so, then every Member of the House of Commons, every citizen and every elector is as good a judge as any other elector or Member of what is trivial and what is substantial. The House and the Committee are obviously very much better advised to base themselves, not on the question whether a breach of statute is trivial or substantial, but on whether a breach of statute has occurred. That is what the House did earlier this afternoon. It refused—and with respect I think it was quite right to refuse—to go into the merits, circumstances, history and arguments for or against and come to any conclusion as to whether or not the gentleman concerned was guilty of moral turpitude, whether he was a hero or a martyr or a common felon. We have refused to discuss any of these matters and we took our decision, on Mr. Speaker's direction, on the plain fact that the statute had declared the gentleman as being incapable of being elected to the House of Commons, and acted accordingly.
Mr. Holland-Martin is also incapable, by statute, of being elected. There is absolutely no distinction to be drawn between the two cases unless we are to go into the merits of the particular group of statutes, and it has already been established that we have no right to do that. If we are not to go into the merits, if we are merely to treat this as a breach of

statute, if we are to base ourselves on the statutory right of a man or woman to be elected to the House of Commons, then the two cases are exactly the same.
5.15 p.m.
It may very well be that the House, if it were free to do so, might confirm the statute which rendered the one case in which a candidate is incapable of being elected, and might wish to amend or even repeal the other statute. The Government have declared themselves time after time as being of the opinion that many offices are offices of profit under the Crown in so narrow or trivial or technical a sense that the law ought to be amended, and a great many of us would support them in that view. But until the statute has been amended, it remains the law of the land and is as much binding on the Committee and this House as any other statute.
There have been a number of cases during the past ten years, and I think perhaps before, in which the House, in select cases, one by one, has done what is proposed here. A man has been found by a Select Committee to be incapable of being elected, and the House, which has accepted that finding, has passed a Motion which virtually in his particular individual case exempted him from the operation of the statute. It has repealed or amended the statute in his particular case. In all those cases the matter has indeed been trivial. But no one can say that it is trivial in this case.
Mr. Holland-Martin was a bank director at a not very large but, at any rate, significant or substantial salary. He knew where he got his salary from. He was a director of a national bank, a State bank. In the course of his office the Government have raised the Bank Rate, presumably to the profit of the banks; they have done this certainly twice, and I am not sure whether it has been raised three times.
All these matters do not involve any personal misconduct on Mr. Holland-Martin's part at all. They are matters in which the statute, left to itself, would involve him in heavy financial penalties. I have already said that we are all content that he should be relieved from all of those. But on the matter whether he should be a Member of this House or not, the statute has declared itself. If he is no longer disqualified by reason of his having resigned that office, then the question whether he should be re-elected to


the House of Commons—or perhaps it would be more strictly correct to say whether he should now be elected to the House of Commons—is surely a matter for the constituency in whose name he sat and voted here while disqualified and incapable of doing so.
This is not a matter that cannot be put right. If Mr. Holland-Martin's constituency shared the view that nothing untoward occurred at all, it would be within their power to elect him when an election next takes place in that constituency, and if he was incapable of being elected and was therefore not elected there would now have to be a new election in which he could stand and explain himself and a great many other things to the electors. It is in every way fit and proper that he should have an opportunity of doing so. He cannot come and explain it to us—not, at any rate, until we have passed this Bill and it has received the Royal Assent. When it has received the Royal Assent, any explanation will be irrelevant.
If we pass the Clause as we are invited to do and the Bill becomes an Act, nobody will ever get any explanation at all. But this is a matter which calls for explanation to the people who have a better right to hear and judge the adequacy of the explanations than the House of Commons has—that is to say, the electors of this country or those of them who have so far not been represented for several years in the House of Commons. I fail to see why the Government should not adopt that course. Why not?
Of course, it would create a by-election. One can see that a by-election might be inconvenient—

Mr. E. Fletcher: And embarrassing.

Mr. Silverman: —and embarrassing to the Government at this moment, particularly if the candidate supporting their policy happened to have been a director of a national bank. But what is inconvenient to the Government might be very convenient to the country and very convenient to the constituency. I am sure that even the Government have not gone so far as to say that where there is a conflict between proper democratic practice and Government convenience,

proper democratic practice should give way and Government convenience should have it. That is really what we are doing here.
This was a serious infringement and a long, continuous infringement, and it was as much a breach of statute as any other matter of this kind with which the House has recently been concerned. There is no more reason in this case why the House of Commons should repeal a long-standing Act of Parliament in respect of one single individual, merely because its own electoral advantage is concerned, than there was that certain electors in Northern Ireland should not have the opportunity of declaring that the man with the greater number of votes rather than the man with the fewer number of votes was elected in their constituency to represent them in the House of Commons.

The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I should like first to say that the procedure followed in this case differs in no respect from the procedure which has been followed in other cases which have come before this House. In each of these cases, the matter has been referred to a Select Committee for investigation and report to this House.
In the Report of the Select Committee upon this case, the Committee, representative of all parties, said:
Your Committee are satisfied that Mr. Holland-Martin acted in good faith in continuing as a local Director of the Bank of New Zealand after becoming a Member of the House. He informed them that it was on his own initiative that the matter was raised. Your Committee appreciate this and consider that otherwise the question of the validity of the election might have gone unnoticed …
That is the view of the Committee which heard Mr. Holland-Martin's evidence, and it is a unanimous conclusion upon that part of the evidence. It appears from the evidence given before the Select Committee that Mr. Holland-Martin brought this question—and it was not an entirely easy question—to my notice at the very first moment possible after it had occurred to him that this office might come within the category of an office of profit under the Crown.
I was glad to hear the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes), in an interruption of the speech of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), correct an impression, which, I think, anyone listening to the


hon. and learned Member's speech would have gained, that he was in fact, contrary to the finding of the Select Committee, accusing Mr. Holland-Martin of acting in bad faith, because, in his speech, the hon. and learned Gentleman said that Mr. Holland-Martin had been gambling with his status, and it looked very much as if he had taken a chance on being elected or not while holding that office.
I am very glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman made it quite clear that, when he used those words, he had no intention of imputing any bad faith of any degree.
That being so, the next thing to which I would refer is the recommendation of the Select Committee, which agreed with the opinion which I expressed that the appointment held was an office of profit under the Crown, and the Committee concluded therefore that Mr. Holland-Martin's election was invalid. In the circumstances, however—and this again was a unanimous recommendation—the Committee recommended that legislation should be introduced at once to indemnify Mr. Holland-Martin from any penalities he might have incurred, and to validate his election.
I do not think that it lies in the mouth of the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) to criticise Her Majesty's Government for acting on that unanimous recommendation of a Select Committee of this House. The Bill was introduced. It obtained its Second Reading, and it was in the same form as the Bills dealing with the five cases that occurred in the days of the Socialist Government, and the other cases which we have had to consider.
It is suggested that this case is on all-fours with cases which have recently been considered in relation to Northern Ireland. That is not the case. It has always been a matter of great difficulty in many cases to determine what falls within the description of office of profit under the Crown. Here, as anyone who has read the Report of the Select Committee, which I fear the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) cannot have done, would have seen, this bank of which Mr. Holland-Martin was a director of the local board in London was a bank constituted in New Zealand, and one of the reasons for concluding that the office held by Mr. Holland-Martin was an office of

profit under the Crown was that the Government of New Zealand had powers of giving directions to the directors in New Zealand, which might have enabled them to dismiss or appoint any local director.
There really is no comparison between conviction for treason and felony and a sentence following upon it, and the question whether or not one holds an office of profit. One is easily provable; the other is not so easily determinable. There is no comparison in that respect. I agree that under the law as it stands both result in incapacity; but this House has taken a very different line with regard to offices of profit because it has always realised—and we hope that the law about this will soon be tidied up—that any hon. Member of this House runs a considerable risk of inadvertently offending against the law about holding an office of profit.
The House up till now has taken a very proper and generous attitude to those who have inadvertently offended against the law by holding an office of profit. Now, the hon. Members for Nelson and Colne and Islington, East have thrown out a suggestion that we should not apply precedents which we followed in the days of the Socialist Government of validating an election and relieving the individual concerned of all penalties—precedents which had been followed heretofore—but that we should merely give relief from penalties.
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne says that a constituency might well want now to change its Member. I do not think that is the sort of argument that we ought to consider in relation to this question, particularly in the light of the Report of a Select Committee which has unanimously recommended, having gone into all the circumstances, the validation of the election. It is a suggestion which, I think, has been thrown out for the first time and one which no doubt the Select Committee, when considering the case to which the Leader of the House has drawn our attention today, will bear in mind when making its recommendations.
I do not propose to say any more about that now other than this. In my view, it would be wrong for us to reject the unanimous recommendation of the Select


Committee and to depart from the precedents which had been set of validating the election and relieving from penalties all those who have been found inadvertently to have gone contrary to the law by holding an office of profit.

Mr. S. Silverman: The Attorney-General will no doubt bear in mind that our discussions are now taking place at a different time and, in a sense, on a different footing from those obtained when the Select Committee met. We have had the Northern Ireland cases since then, and we have had a plain direction, even this afternoon, from Mr. Speaker that where a statute declares that a man is incapable of being elected to the House of Commons, the House of Commons ought to regard itself as bound by it and not seek to amend or repeal it, except in proper form. The circumstances are, therefore, now very different from those with which the Select Committee had to deal.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I always appreciate, and listen with great interest, to the logical and legal arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). Whether we agree with him or not, we always have the greatest respect for his opinion on these matters. That goes for my other hon. and hon. and learned Friends who have spoken in this debate.
They put me in the slightly difficult position of having to disagree either with them or with my four hon. Friends who served on the Select Committee, and I think it best to say quite frankly that of the two opinions I prefer that of my hon. Friends on the Select Committee; and I reject the somewhat insufficient distinction that has just been drawn between the circumstances at that time and now. We have had other cases before a Select Committee and before this House, and today we have had an intimation that one is to be referred. Perhaps it is better to say nothing whatever about it, not even about the matters which the Select Committee will consider when it deals with that case.
Therefore, for myself and, I believe, for many of my hon. and right hon. Friends I say we accept the Report of the Select Committee, as we did, on a question which it is very difficult indeed to distinguish from the question before the Committee—the question on Second Reading of this Bill. We accept it, and we believe that this Clause ought to stand part of the Bill if only because that to which we gave a Second Reading without a Division would otherwise seem to be somewhat meaningless.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third Time and passed.

Orders of the Day — SUDAN (SPECIAL PAYMENTS) [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the payment of gratuities to or in respect of former officials of the Government or Parliament of the Sudan, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) any sums required for the payment of those gratuities, so, however, that—

(i) the said sums shall not in the aggregate exceed one hundred and sixty thousand pounds; and
(ii) in the case of any one person, the aggregate of any such gratuity paid to or in respect of him and any lump sum payment made to him by the Sudan Government by way of compensation for loss of career shall not exceed the equivalent of eight thousand five hundred Egyptian pounds, the pound sterling being taken to be the equivalent of ninety-seven and a half Egyptian piastres;

(b) the following increases, with effect from the sixteenth day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty-five, in the superannuation allowances which would otherwise be payable, or might otherwise be granted, under the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1950, and the Superannuation (Diplomatic Service) Act, 1929, to Sir Robert Howe, lately Governor-General of the Sudan, that is to say—

(i) an increase of two hundred and fifty pounds in the annual allowance; and
(ii) an increase of seven hundred and fifty pounds in the additional allowance.

SUDAN (SPECIAL PAYMENTS) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir RHYS HOPKIN MORRIS in the Chair]

Clause 1.— [POWER TO PAY GRATUITIES TO CERTAIN FORMER OFFICIALS OF SUDAN GOVERNMENT OR PARLIAMENT.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

5.35 p.m.

Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: There are one or two points arising on this Clause about which I should like an explanation. I should like an explanation of the different dates which appear in subsection (2) for different categories of civil servants referred to. A second point arises under subsection (3), which provides for the contingency of the service being terminated by so many months' notice, the number of months varying in different cases. I suppose that the obvious explanation about the length of notice in particular cases is that it varies because of the contract of service. I do not know, but perhaps we could be told.
What bothers me a little is what is to arise if the contract of service is not terminated by the stipulated number of months' notice provided in subsection (3), that being, for instance, in paragraph (a) two months' notice or, I suppose, what is accepted by the parties in place of two months' notice. Apparently a case of wrongful discharge does not come within the provisions of this Bill. Assuming that someone is wrongfully discharged, there would be a claim against the person wrongfully discharging him and there would be damages payable accordingly, but so far as I can see that would not bring in in substance the topping-up provisions under the Bill. It may be that there are no cases of that kind coming within the Bill, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell me.
If the right hon. Gentleman would give some explanation of how this matter works in cases other than those which come within the rather narrowly worded provisions of subsection (3) providing for a stated number of months' notice, I shall be obliged.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. R. H. Turton): This Bill is to provide a topping up of compensation that is provided under the Sudan Ordinance. Therefore, the effect of this Clause is to use the words that are used in the Sudan Expatriate Officials Compensation Ordinance, 1954. That is why we have this phrasing.
Subsection (2, a) refers back to the Sudan Ordinance and includes all those who are pensionable officials under the Sudan Government Pension Ordinance, 1919. Paragraph (b) deals with women officials who are working towards an annuity, which for these purposes was regarded as being the same as for pension. In subsection (3) we are restating the provisions for notices set out in the Sudan Ordinance. Under paragraph (a) we are saying that if notice was given under recommendation of the Sudanisation Committee it should be two months and if it is given, under paragraph (b), by the Sudan Government or by the person on or after the first day of January, 1955, it should be six months' notice, but if it is not given until the first day of July, 1955, it only becomes three months' notice. That is reciting what is in the Sudan Ordinance.
Finally, under paragraph (d) we are saying that if a person finds that he has not been promoted to a position and notice has been given to him of the decision to appoint a Sudanese to the vacancy he might have got he can give merely three months' notice whether that occurred before or after 1st July. In all those cases those notices may be reduced by agreement in writing between the parties.
The question of wrongful dismissal does not really arise here, because we are only dealing with cases where a man is entitled to compensation under the Sudan Ordinance. If he is not entitled to compensation under the Sudan Ordinance he is not entitled to the topping up under this Bill. Therefore, I submit that the question of wrongful dismissal does not arise in this connection.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: It might be important if there are cases of wrongful dismissal. In a case of that kind, which, quite clearly, is not covered in terms by the Bill, in which a civil servant suffers, as it were, a double injury—not merely


not having the advantage of the provisions of the Bill, but also having the wrongful dismissal piled on top—would consideration be given to ensuring that the measure of damages paid to the civil servant would be on the footing that he would otherwise be entitled to the advantage of the topping-up provisions of the Bill?

Mr. Turton: I can only repeat that if the official is not receiving compensation under the Sudan Ordinance, topping up cannot arise. Therefore, if he were wrongfully dismissed and did not come under any provision of the Sudan Ordinance, it would not be possible for the conditions laid down in the Bill to take effect.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: That is exactly the point I am making. It does not help for the right hon. Gentleman to repeat as an answer the point which I am making in raising the difficulty. There is nothing between us on this; we are agreed that it does not come within the Sudan Ordinance and, therefore, does not come within the topping-up provisions. That is the whole gist of my question.
In those circumstances, because that case would not come within the Bill, will the Government consider ensuring that when an official suffers the wrong of wrongful dismissal—it is on the basis of wrongful dismissal, and not rightful dismissal—the damages which would be paid to him, or whatever is done in lieu of damages paid to him, would be on the footing that if he had not been wrongfully dismissed, he would have had the advantages of the topping up provisions of the Bill?

Mr. Turton: I am sorry if my previous reply appeared to be repetitive to the hon. and learned Member. He is asking us to consider the case of a Sudan official who, in the Sudan, is wrongfully dismissed. From that tort there would be an action in the Sudan for damages. I cannot provide in this Bill for what a Sudan court would award in damages, nor would it be possible for the House to give a topping up provision to the Sudan court. That is why I tried to explain—I hoped courteously and without undue repetition—that that cannot be within the purview of the Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman is asking me to deal with something

which would be entirely a matter for a Sudan court of justice.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 to 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITIES RESTRICTION BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

5.44 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. R. H. Turton): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As the Bill is dealing with diplomatic immunities, it might help the House if I first explained what is meant by "diplomatic immunity." This is a practice that dates back to very early times. There were occasions when an envoy who was despatched with a message to barbarian countries was summarily executed if the message was unpleasant. That made a diplomatic career unattractive—indeed, in the words of Hobbes, nasty, brutish and short. It also provided a deterrent to international communications. There was, therefore, designed the custom of according special protection to the person of the envoy and of granting certain exemptions from the jurisdiction of the State to which he was accredited. It was accepted that the conduct of any kind of negotiations between States would be quite impossible if the life of the envoy was in perpetual jeopardy.
Ambassadors no longer, we hope, go about in fear of their lives, yet they must still be protected in respect of the official acts that they perform; and in order that they may discharge their duties with confidence and independence, it is necessary that they should be granted immunity in both civil and criminal courts.
So far as this country is concerned, the earliest Act dealing with this subject was in 1708, in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Anne. The House might be interested to know the background of that Act. It was an Act described
for preserving the Privileges of Ambassadors and other Public Ministers of Foreign Princes and States.


The origin was that Mr. Matueof, the Russian Ambassador, unfortunately got into debt and was arrested for non-payment of his debts while he was proceeding in his carriage through London, and he was dragged out of his carriage and, I believe, rather inconveniently handled. After that, the Act was introduced.
The Act did no more than declare the existing common law but it served its purpose of making clear that diplomatic envoys and their retinues were not subject to the ordinary processes of law. Ambassadors, Ministers and members of their staffs enjoy diplomatic immunity, not only in respect of official acts, the need for which is axiomatic, but also in respect of personal matters. In granting this immunity we are only carrying out the requirements that are widely recognised as the requirements of international law. In some countries, however, the degree of protection that is given to British missions is much lower than that required by international law.
Since the 1914–18 War, there has in this country been a great extension in the number of those receiving diplomatic immunity. The first reason for this has been the growth of the number of accredited missions. In 1938 there were 54 foreign missions in this country and today there are 72.
A second reason has been the growth in the size of the staffs of these missions. The subjects and methods of modern diplomacy have become very complicated. Technical, economic and military liaison has become an integral part of diplomatic activity, and step by step with the development of more advanced techniques in office work, and the development of communications, there has been an increase in the numbers of clerical staffs in the mission offices.
I find that whereas, in 1938, there were about 1,000 persons in all who were receiving diplomatic immunity today the number has grown to slightly more than 2,500. Let me give the House some examples. In 1938, there were 44 enjoying diplomatic immunity in the Soviet Embassy; by 1951 that number had grown to 92; today, the number is 118. Let me give another example. In the United States Embassy, in 1938, there were 101 enjoying diplomatic immunity; by 1951 the number had grown to 1,058; since then it has been reduced to 604.
Not unnaturally, this increase has caused disquiet. It is sometimes claimed that too many in this country are above the law, and that this is a development that is distasteful to a democratic country. This is, however, not the fact. A diplomat enjoys immunity only from legal process: he is still subject to the operation of the law of the land, criminal or civil, and is under a special obligation to respect it.
There is little evidence of abuse of the immunity granted. Last year the number of motoring offences committed by members of the Diplomatic Corps and reported to the Foreign Office was 105. The majority of those cases were minor charges of parking and of breaking the speed limit, which, if they had been dealt with by the courts, would have been punished by small fines. In civil jurisdiction the number of disputes over property or civil debts was last year only 35. Out of the 2,500 persons entitled, that was not a considerable proportion.
Still, the disquiet existed. Six years ago the Labour Government set up an inter-departmental committee under Lord Justice Somervell to consider whether the law of the United Kingdom in regard to diplomatic immunity was in any respect wider than was necessary or desirable. The Somervell Committee reported on 13th July, 1951. It gave broad approval to the present practice, but recommended that consideration should be given to the possibility of legislation empowering the Government to reduce the immunities granted to the mission of any country so as to correspond with the immunities granted by that country to British missions. The effect of that recommendation would be to bring the law and practice of diplomatic immunity into line with the practice of the grant of diplomatic privileges which are, as a general rule, already based on the doctrine of reciprocity. The Committee did not recommend any change in the immunities and privileges of international organisations. While these cannot be described exactly as reciprocal, yet, as they result from international agreements, they are the same for members of the organisations in all countries.
This Bill is being introduced to carry out the Somervell Committee's recommendations. If hon. Members will turn to the Bill they will see that Clause 1


enables the Government, by Order in Council, to withdraw personal immunities where envoys, their families and servants, and members of the official staffs of such envoys and their families, are at present receiving personal immunities in excess of those accorded to our missions in their own territory. The House will notice that no attempt is made to reduce the immunity for official acts, which, as I said earlier, is a necessary foundation of all diplomacy.
Power is taken in this Clause not only to make Orders in Council but also to vary or revoke them. The justification for this is that first we must discover how far our present practice is reciprocated; we must see whether as a result of this Bill certain countries are going to increase their standards of diplomatic immunity to our level, and also indeed to the level prescribed by international law. I hope that one of the consequences of the Bill will be that some countries will indeed give our representatives that immunity which is prescribed by international law, and that there will be some relaxations of the difficulties some of our representatives now endure in certain countries. Then we must have the power to alter our Orders when other countries take subsequent action reducing or increasing the diplomatic immunity they extend to our missions.
It may be of value if I give a summary of certain disparities in practice that have already come to our notice. Whilst we give immunity from civil action to all the non-diplomatic staff of all countries, in 25 countries such immunity is either not granted at all or it is at best doubtful whether it is accorded to the non-diplomatic staff of our missions. While we give personal immunity in civil actions to all the personal servants of an envoy who are not citizens of the United Kingdom, in 30 countries this immunity is denied to British servants of our ambassadors and ministers.
The power conferred by Clause 1 will enable us to withdraw immunity in such cases. I cannot at present tell the House how many persons will be affected, but I think I can reasonably say that the figure of 2,500 of entitled persons will be reduced, and that it will be a substantial reduction.
Clause 2 is to carry out another recommendation of the Somervell Committee. That was, that in future any local national holding any position in a foreign embassy, including the position of a domestic servant, should not be accepted except on the condition that he shall not enjoy personal diplomatic immunity. This merely gives the sanction of law to current practice. Citizens of the United Kingdom employed in capacities other than that of domestic servants have not enjoyed this immunity since 1786, and since 27th August, 1952, this practice has been extended by administrative action to include such domestic servants who entered employment subsequent to that date.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the point about withdrawing immunity from the representatives of foreign nations in this country, would he deal with the correlative point? Is it not provocative on our part to withdraw immunities from ambassadors and other representatives of foreign countries? If we pass this Bill, may we not expect from those countries further withdrawals of the immunities they accord to our representatives to them?

Mr. Turton: All we are suggesting is that the conduct of diplomatic immunity, which is a courtesy provided by international law, should be reciprocal. If the 25 countries I have mentioned are not giving our non-diplomatic staff personal immunity—which is inconvenient to our non-diplomatic staff—it is perfectly right and proper, in my submission—it is for the House to decide—that we should take powers to reduce the immunities of the non-diplomatic staffs of those missions.
I think hon. Members will see that that can hardly be described as provocative action. If there has been any provocation it is that certain countries are still denying us the normal diplomatic immunities accorded by international law. It may well be that, if Parliament passes this Bill, some countries may now take the hint and increase the immunities they accord to our staffs so that they are appropriate by the standards of international law.
Clause 3 (1) defines personal immunity as
immunity from suit or legal process … and inviolability or residence.


It excludes any action arising out of acts committed in the course of official duties. As I have already explained, that exclusion is necessary in order to uphold the ancient principle of the protection of an envoy when he is acting in his official capacity. Clause 3 (2) merely protects the existing immunities accorded in other legislation. It is merely a drafting provision.
I hope that the House will agree that the Bill carries out the recommendations of the Somervell Committee. I submit to the House that it is a necessary Measure and I hope that the House will give Her Majesty's Government its unanimous support in passing it swiftly into law.

6.2 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Robens: We on this side of the House would not oppose this Bill. As the Joint Under-Secretary has said, it provides for reciprocity so that our nationals who represent us abroad are treated in the same way as the nationals of other countries who serve in missions in this country are treated by us. To that extent it is fair and right and deals with one aspect of the problem. The Joint Under-Secretary, however, must be well aware that, from time to time, from all parts of the House, there has been mounting criticism of the increasing number of people who have diplomatic immunity. It is keenly felt that it is wrong that by reason of increasing missions, and so on, there should be an increasing number of people with diplomatic immunity which takes them above the law.
What the right hon. Gentleman says about the origin of all this is interesting and perfectly sound, but we are now in 1955 and there is not much likelihood that what took place at the time of which he was speaking might take place now. It seems inconceivable to me that people who are here representing their countries are required to have diplomatic immunity to the extent to which it is now granted. Equally, it seems unnecessary that many of our people abroad should not observe the ordinary rules, laws and regulations of the country in which they serve. The Bill does nothing to reduce the number of people who have diplomatic immunity. It merely says that if a particular country does not grant our nationals in that country facilities and privileges which we grant to that country's nationals here,

we should reduce those facilities and privileges in this country on a reciprocal basis.
The Bill does not deal with the real problem and for that reason I am rather disappointed. We have discussed this matter before in the House, particularly when we were dealing with representatives of the Schuman Plan Assembly. I thought that it was generally agreed in the House that we should confer diplomatic immunity on as few people as possible and, within missions, only to those people for whom diplomatic immunity is right and proper. I am not sure that we should go right through to members of the domestic staff of an ambassador's household merely because they happen to be of another nationality.
I am not sure that it is necessary that a domestic servant inside an embassy in this country should have diplomatic immunity because he or she happens to have the nationality of the country from which the envoy comes. There is no question of a domestic servant coming along with some unpleasant news as a result of which he or she might have his or her head chopped off. It is right and proper that accredited heads of missions should have immunity and that high officials within an embassy should have it, but I am not sure that it is necessary to go as far as we do and as far as some other countries also do.
In these days business itself is international and there are in various capitals of the world missions belonging to business interests, such as oil interests and the like. They do not require diplomatic immunity to carry out their business. It seems to me that at the moment we have far too many people who have diplomatic immunity and who do not necessarily require it. I do not think it helps the case by saying that only 35 people out of about 2,000 broke the law in respect of debts incurred. That is a very high proportion. If one were to take that proportion out of our total population of 58 million and that proportion ran away from debts incurred I doubt very much whether a Minister of the Crown would say that that was a small matter.

Mr. Turton: I said that only 35 people had any disputes over property or debt. That is rather different from saying that only 35 people had debts. It was a


question of how many had disputes. That was 35 out of 2,500 which, I say, is not a high proportion.

Mr. Robens: I think that it is. If we had litigation by 35 out of every 2,500 of our population in relation to disputes over properties or debt we should have to do something about our law courts, because they would not be able to deal with the cases. The proportion is high and I am rather surprised that the Minister should tell us that it is not. It is far higher than the normal proportion of disputes among citizens in this country in relation to property and debt and I suggest that the Minister should not be complacent about it. However, that is not a matter of moment. What is really important is the question whether we are giving diplomatic immunity to more people than is really necessary.
Is it not a good thing that people who are in this country, representing their own country, should conform as far as possible with the law like any other citizen? In the same way, is it not a good thing that our representatives abroad should conform with the laws of those countries as far as is commensurate with the duties which they perform? The Foreign Office must have been considering certain matters in connection with the behaviour of members of British missions abroad in a famous case which is not under discussion now but which will be discussed later in this Parliament—the question of disgraceful behaviour by two people. If those people had not had diplomatic immunity they would have been called before the court for unseemly behaviour and for breaking the law. Would not that be a good thing? I do not think that it is a good thing to protect large numbers of people by raising them above the law.
I would not permit anybody, either a British national abroad or another national here, to have diplomatic immunity unless it was proved beyond doubt that the position he occupied ought to have that immunity. Obviously, every Ambassador should have diplomatic immunity, but how far below the ambassadorial rank should we go? I do not think that we should go as far as according immunity to domestic servants. It is a great mistake.
I hope that the Minister will take note of some of the comments which have

been made before in the House on this subject and that he will have read some of the articles and comments in the newspapers. I hope that he will realise that this is not a matter for complacency. I hope that he will realise that we are concerned about the growing number of people who have diplomatic immunity but who, to do their job efficiently, do not require it. I would say immediately that anyone whose job requires diplomatic immunity certainly should have it.
I do not believe that we should send people abroad to have diplomatic immunity extended to them unless their jobs really require it. The right hon. Gentleman must have visited many countries abroad in his time and must have met many people who are accredited to various missions. He must have come to the same conclusion as that to which I have come—that a very large number do not require diplomatic immunity in order to do their jobs.
I repeat that businessmen throughout the world are doing their hard, day-to-day business work without diplomatic immunity, but conforming to the rules, regulations and laws of the countries in which they operate. I commend further consideration by the right hon. Gentleman and his friends to this matter of diplomatic immunity. This Bill, however, does not deal with the wider considerations, but is restricted to a small point, and as the hon. Gentleman said its aim is to treat others as they treat us. That is not a bad precept, but it does not touch this question of the growing numbers of people who are outside the law.
I am sure that public opinion in this country which voices itself on this matter is against this growing number of people who enjoy diplomatic immunity. Personally, I am convinced that a great many people who have immunity do not require it in order to do their jobs efficiently. I hope that in due course the Foreign Office, in its own interests, will go much more carefully into the whole question, and, in accord with other Governments, evolve a scheme whereby the number of people in this world who enjoy diplomatic immunity can be considerably reduced.

6.12 p.m.

Captain J. A. L. Duncan: Since 1945, mine has been almost a lone voice protesting against the


extension of diplomatic privilege and immunity in the way in which it has been going on ever since the war. I was out of Parliament after the 1945 Election until 1950, by which time the Diplomatic Immunity Convention had been agreed to by the former Government, and I think that many of the things against which the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) has been protesting have been caused by that Convention, to which his Government agreed in 1950.
I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman today, and the former Solicitor-General, speaking, I think, on 20th June, have returned to my view. I hope we are all now agreed that diplomatic immunity should be restricted in numbers and in degree to those for whom it is necessary, so that the missions concerned can carry out their statutory and diplomatic duties in the countries concerned. To that extent, I welcome this small Bill, because it carries out some of the Somervell recommendations that diplomatic immunity should be reciprocal, and to that extent we are gaining. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, however, that it might well be restricted further in order to exclude domestic servants, and so on.
I should like to illustrate that argument by suggesting the case of the chauffeur of an ambassador driving the latter to some Guildhall banquet in a hurry. The ambassador tells the chauffeur to "put his foot on it" in whatever foreign language may be appropriate, and as a result the chauffeur is involved in an accident. Would the chauffeur be liable under British law, although the responsibility was really that of the ambassador? This illustrates some of the difficulties, and there may be some case for diplomatic immunity being extended to servants when engaged on official duties, although I hope it will be restricted as much as possible.

Mr. Robens: The hon. and gallant Member has a very good point there, and that it is a matter for careful consideration. Would not the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that if the ambassador's car was being used to take the wife of the ambassador shopping and a similar instruction was given followed by a similar result, it should not be covered by diplomatic immunity?

Captain Duncan: I would agree with that, if it should be possible to make such arrangements.
In the debate on 20th June, I tried to obtain from the Joint Under-Secretary the numbers of people enjoying this immunity, but the right hon. Gentleman would not give them. I am very glad he has given them today, because they show that from being about 1,000 in 1938 they are 2,500 today. I hope that as a result of this Bill the latter figure will be reduced, and that alternatively the privileges accorded to our representatives abroad will be increased. There are many cases—we all know them—in certain countries in which the members of British missions receive far less by way of diplomatic privilege and immunity than the members of foreign missions from those countries serving here in London. I hope that restriction will not only reduce the numbers but also extend diplomatic privilege and immunity to the degree to which we are entitled in those foreign countries.
I am not quite sure how far the matter comes within the scope of this Bill, but there is one thing that is beginning to annoy me, and that is the number of C.D. plates on motor cars. I gather from the reply given by a Foreign Office spokesman some months ago that these plates signify nothing. Surely, it is time that they signified something. For instance, I could put a C.D. plate on my car and the right hon. Gentleman opposite could do the same with his, and nothing could stop us. This proliferation of C.D. plates on cars ought to be stopped. If the Foreign Office can do something under the provisions of this Bill or by administrative action to reduce the number of C.D. plates on cars in London, I think that would not only be in the interests of the country as a whole but definitely of benefit in international relations generally.

6.19 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: A great many people, including some hon. Members on the other side of the House, will have been very considerably disturbed by some of the things which the Joint Under-Secretary said this afternoon in recommending this Bill.
There is no doubt that throughout the country there is a very widespread feeling of dismay and disturbance at the extent to which diplomatic immunity in this


country has increased in recent years. I do not think it was appreciated until the Minister spoke that the number of persons enjoying diplomatic privilege has more than doubled since 1938; it has gone up from about 1,000 then to about 2,500 now. This is a circumstance which causes a great deal of legitimate unrest and disquiet.
I want to ask the Minister whether it is necessary, and whether steps should not be taken to reduce the extent of this immunity. Some persons may have been misled into thinking that this Bill was intended to restrict diplomatic immunity, but it became more and more obvious as the Minister spoke that that was not the intention at all. Indeed, the Minister spoke as if he were trying to increase the present range of immunity. He said that as a result of this Bill the immunities being given to British diplomatic personnel abroad, in some cases where there is no reciprocity today, would be improved and increased, and, therefore, orders under the Bill would not be required. That is not the view I take, and it is not the approach which the Minister should entertain.
The right hon. Gentleman gave us an historical resumé of the circumstances in the time of Queen Anne which made diplomatic immunity necessary in order that international relations might be carried on, diplomatic exchange effected and the comity of nations preserved.
The real charge against this mischievous increase in the extent of diplomatic immunity given today is that it is quite unnecessary for the only purpose which in its origin justified it. The charge against those who enjoy it, whether they are representatives of foreign States in this country or representatives of Her Majesty's Government abroad, is that this privilege has been considerably abused. It is the abuse of diplomatic immunity to which the people object, and I think that the Minister and the Foreign Office would be well advised in the public interest to turn their attention to the cases of abuse of immunity that come to their notice, whether in connection with British representatives abroad, or in connection with foreign States in this country.
I hope that before we part with this Bill we shall have a little more information than the Under-Secretary has given

us this afternoon. He told us that there were 35 cases out of 2,000 in which persons enjoying diplomatic immunity had become involved in some dispute about property or debt. That is a very large figure, far larger than the average. What does it mean? Does it mean that these 35 persons out of a relatively small number have refused to pay debts they ought to have paid? Does it mean that they have got into some dispute with their landlords about property which they have leased? Does it mean that 35 people have relied on diplomatic immunity in their private commercial concerns in order to excuse themselves from liabilities which they would otherwise have met? Is that what it means?
We want far more information about this. We can all concede that there is a clear case for putting ambassadors, heads of missions and perhaps senior members of their staffs in a situation in which they can carry out their diplomatic functions without any fear or favour. But there is no case today, in the middle of the twentieth century, for excusing diplomatic personnel and their domestic, secretarial and other staff from observing the ordinary decencies of life in the country in which they live. If they contract debts, they should pay their debts and honour their obligations like other people. If they take up tenancies, they should pay their rent like other people and if they become involved in law suits, litigation about commercial transactions into which they are free to enter or not to enter, they should abide by the law of the land and not plead diplomatic immunity.
What is the case for it? What is the justification for it? Is this not merely another instance of the close, hide-bound privilege of the Foreign Offices of the world, which has led to so much mischief in the past and which is leading to so much mischief today? The Under-Secretary said that there were certain concepts of international law which were observed by some countries and not observed by others. The whole subject needs to be studied. I am not in favour of this Bill being used merely to build up and extend privileges of British diplomatic personnel abroad. Very many of them would do their job better if they had to observe the law of the land in which they live.

Mr. Turton: I have repeated this again and again. I have said that all diplomats have to abide by the law of the land in which they live. It is not a question of immunity from the law, but of immunity from legal processes. I hope that the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), who is a lawyer, will remember that fact.

Mr. Fletcher: But what does that mean? The Under-Secretary says that they have to observe the law. Does he know what he means by diplomatic immunity? It means that they are immune from the legal consequences of what they do. If they have incurred a debt to a tailor in Germany, or Finland, or wherever it may be and choose not to pay their debt, they can rely on diplomatic immunity and plead that exemption if they are sued.
That is what diplomatic immunity means. That is what it means in this country. It means that if a person enjoying diplomatic immunity in this country goes to a tailor in Savile Row and orders a suit and does not pay for it, he cannot be sued. There is no justification for that. It means that they are immune from the civil processes of the law courts. The Under-Secretary implied that they are not immune from criminal law. I suppose that if a diplomat committed murder, or some other serious crime, he could be tried under criminal law. But what is the case with minor offences, such as motoring offences? In view of what has been said, it is not clear to me how that stands. It is on this point that I want some more information. If the police catch somebody—I hope we shall get a specific answer on this question—and that person has a C.D. plate on his car and is on the diplomatic immunity list and the offence is concerned with parking, or exceeding the speed limit, or something of that kind, what happens? Is he merely reported to the Foreign Office, or is he liable in the same way as a British citizen is liable to be summoned and brought before the police court and fined?
The Under-Secretary said that they were not above the law. If he will tell us that diplomatic immunity does not absolve them from the ordinary liability of British citizens to observe traffic laws like other laws, I shall not only be surprised, but delighted. The general impression is that a C.D. plate—which any-

body can put on his car, without committing an offence—in fact confers some relief, some exoneration from the ordinary law of the land. I hope that the Under-Secretary will tell us whether this is so or not.
If it is the case, the Minister should justify it, for it cannot be necessary for diplomats to have immunity of that kind to enable them the better to fulfil their diplomatic duties. I am sure that there are plenty of other people in this country to whom it is just as necessary from time to time either to exceed the speed limit, or to park a car where technically they are not supposed to park it, as it is to the minor servants of a foreign ambassador.
I am profoundly disappointed with the Bill; I am profoundly disappointed with the Government's approach to it. I think that when the public read what the Under-Secretary said about it they will feel that the Government are neglecting their duty in failing to overhaul the whole range of diplomatic immunity. I very much hope that as a result of this discussion the Government will have further thoughts on the matter and bring a further measure of reform to the House.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. Hector Hughes: In some ways this is a provocative Bill and will need more consideration than we can give it before it passes into law. It has been said that we must do unto other nations as they do unto us, but we must take care that the Bill will not operate in such a way that other nations will do to us in a restrictive way what the Bill wishes us to do to them. If we are taking power to reduce their immunities, let us take care that they will not take power to reduce our immunities.
The Bill may be the beginning of a vicious circle which may react upon ourselves and inflict damage upon our own ambassadorial services in other countries. At the same time there is no doubt about the need to reform the law relating to diplomatic immunities, but it is not so urgent that now, after centuries of delay, in a hasty manner, by an inadequate Bill, without consulting the other nations of the Commonwealth, we should rush the Bill into law. The Commonwealth is vitally interested in diplomatic immunity and next year at the forthcoming Commonwealth Conference will be able to


discuss it, if the Bill is postponed. I suggest that it should be postponed until after that Conference.
There is no need for haste. The law has worked reasonably well, comparatively few problems have arisen and most of them were pleas of privilege in actions of law, or repudiations of claims by insurance companies. In the main these have been settled by administrative methods, or by adjustment between the parties.
Last July, when this Bill was presented to the House, I took the precaution of writing to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and asking him some questions about it. I got from him a letter giving me a very explicit reply. He said:
In fairness to the Diplomatic Corps I should say that there is in fact no evidence of widespread abuse. Bearing in mind that there are more than 2,500 resident foreign diplomatic officials in this country who are entitled to claim personal immunity, the hundred-odd motoring offences of all degrees of gravity (including the most trivial) and the three dozen or so of civil claims which come to the notice of the Foreign Office in the course of an average year do not point to any general disregard of the law or failure to comply with contractual obligations on the part of the members of the Corps.
In face of that, I submit to the House that there is no urgency about this Bill. We should not hastily attempt to press it through without consulting the Commonwealth. There are larger considerations of a non-party-political character, and of an all-party character, which this House should take into account in considering a Bill of such importance as this. I ask hon. Member on both sides of the House to view these problems today in a broad, Commonwealth and planetary way, because this Bill affects Britain's relations with Europe, Asia, America, the British Commonwealth and the world. In the hope of carrying with me hon. Members on both sides of the House, I venture to quote what their leader said not so very long ago. The right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir Winston Churchill) said this:
We here in Britain have always to think of the British self-governing Dominions—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. We are joined together by ties of freewill and affection which have stood unyielding against the ups and downs of fortune. We are the centre and summit of a world-wide Commonwealth of Nations. It is necessary that any

policy this Island may adopt towards Europe and in Europe should enjoy the full sympathy and approval of the peoples of the Dominions.
I say that is relevant today, and I say that the Commonwealth should be consulted before we take the invidious steps of which this Bill is the dark and ominous threat. Therefore, let us postpone this Bill until after the Commonwealth Conference next year.
There has already been long delay in taking the necessary steps to that end. This branch of the law, as the Minister has said, goes back many centuries and it has survived many vicissitudes. It has served many diverse causes as well as our own. Now the Government are attempting to pass this Bill through Parliament without waiting for the Commonwealth Conference which will be held next year. I say that such procedure is wrong, because it may increase international tensions; because the Commonwealth has a right to be consulted; because of the intrinsic demerits of the Bill, which were referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) and for other reasons which I shall give.
The problems are not new, but the international circumstances are new, and the solutions should be new. They should be calmly considered by us and by the Commonwealth, and should not be rushed. The Minister has referred to history. Let us look at what is old and what is new in this matter.
The practice of sending ambassadors abroad to conduct particular international negotiations dates from remote antiquity. To such persons diplomatic immunity had and has always been accorded under the national constitution then extant, and is today under the law as it stands without the passing of this Bill. Today, there are different constitutions and groupings, different international relationships and different needs. The Babylonian and Roman Empires, and later the Holy Roman Empire, the several British Empires, and the Russian Empire are not comparable with today's international groupings and complications, and something more is needed in these complications than is contained in this little provocative Bill. The matter should be carefully considered by the Commonwealth Conference next year.
Today, we have blocs of nations, international organisations, and unions of states where once we had the simpler ideas of single nations, kingdoms and empires. Today, the exigencies are different from what they were. The needs are different. The solutions too must be different, but they are not found in this trivial Bill. Today these modern aggregations of nations under the shadow of the hydrogen bomb are seeking unities and not differences; world government and not the exclusions of which this Bill would be the provocative instrument.
This old-fashioned Bill reeks of the seventeenth century, up to which time ambassadors were chosen for each occasion. It was at about that period that an important change occurred. For the first time permanent ambassadors instead of ad hoc missions were sent to represent the interests of independent states. The Diplomatic Privileges Act of 1708 in the reign of Queen Anne, to which the Minister referred, gave such public ministers complete immunity from all suits and processes. That suited those times, but would not suit these, when we have career ambassadors and career high commissioners.
Since then international relations have changed; three British Empires have risen in turn; the Empire of the Czars has passed away; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has arisen; the forty-eight separate States of North America have become the United States of America. During these picturesque changes this antique branch of the law remained unchanged and is today out-moded. But it should not be hastily changed by Britain alone without the careful consideration of this House in conjunction with careful consideration at next year's Commonwealth Conference.
It might be otherwise, were the Conference not being held next year. It might be otherwise were there some urgency about the Bill. But the Foreign Office itself, in the letter which I have just read, indicates that there is no urgency about it, and we have imminent the Commonwealth Conference which can be consulted. What will the other Members of the Commonwealth say if we hastily rush this Bill through this House without consulting them when the Conference is so near? I suggest that everything points

to the desirability of postponing the passing of this Bill until after the Conference has been held.
It is only fair to say that in this dark field one illuminating spark was struck by the Prime Minister of Britain during the war years, when he suggested that France should join the British Commonwealth of Nations. Is any nation likely to wish to join the Commonwealth if we pass provocative legislation of this kind? I venture to suggest that by so doing the Government will defeat themselves. By passing a Bill of this kind they will tend to defeat any peaceful international policy and any chance of the expansion of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The late Mr. Ernest Bevin, when Foreign Secretary, with his characteristic realism and foresight appointed the interdepartmental Committee out of which this Bill sprang. I am concerned only with the second term of reference. It reads
Whether the law and practice of the United Kingdom affords to persons possessing diplomatic immunity an immunity in any respect wider than is desirable or is strictly required by the principles of public international law.
Such persons, it seems to me, include the diplomatists of the Commonwealth nations inter se and also vis-à-vis foreign nations, and of the Colonial Empire as well as those of foreign nations in relation to Britain. For advising upon such aspects, it is to be noticed that the Committee included the legal adviser of the Colonial Office, as well as the principal legal adviser of the Foreign Office—both very able, learned and distinguished men.
That Committee, appointed on 23rd November, 1949, produced an interim report which has not been published, as the Report says, because of its nature. On 13th July, 1951—four and a half years ago—it produced the careful Report which is now before us. Does not that show—four and a half years ago—that there is no urgency about this, and that we can wait at least one other year in order to consult our brothers in the other realms of the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Conference? During that four and a half years there has been no frantic haste to implement that useful Report. Now, in October, 1955, we are asked to consider this Bill which is, I submit, wrong in its approach to the problem, unworthy of the Report on which it is based, inadequate in its purpose and


should be postponed until after the Commonwealth Conference in 1956.
I shall briefly indicate my reasons for saying this. This Bill is wrong in its approach because it is completely negative. It ignores the realms of the Commonwealth which are free and independent nations in their own right. They have diplomatic representation—indeed, they have diplomatic immunity. It is unworthy of the Report because it narrows the implications of the Report—notably the first wide and unnumbered paragraph and also paragraph 4. It is inadequate for its purpose, as its four clauses show. Clauses 3 and 4 deal with interpretation and short title—mere machinery—but look at Clauses 1 and 2. Clause 1 provides for
Reciprocal withdrawal of personal immunities,
and Clause 2 provides for
Exclusion of personal immunities in case of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
There is nothing more in the Bill than these quite inadequate Clauses. There is nothing in it to attract international support. The Bill is not attractive of international, or indeed, of Commonwealth support. It is repellent of both. There is nothing in it to indicate preferential or most-favoured treatment for those who are our brothers in the British Commonwealth of Nations, for those who seek to become our brothers; for Colonies and dependencies climbing towards independence; or for friendly foreign nations who may wish to be accepted into our brotherhood of nations—and there are indications that some foreign nations may so wish. These defects will be apparent if we inquire into the present state of the law and what improvements in it are needed.
We are not without indications that certain foreign nations might wish to join the British Commonwealth of Nations. This Bill will repel them. It is on record that Mr. Yoshida, the former Prime Minister of Japan, said to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth that he wished Japan to join the British Commonwealth of Nations. We have fellowship and understanding with the Scandinavian nations, and we had that rapprochement with France during the war. We have indications that our great Commonwealth

may be enlarged, not only by additions from the dependent Empire, not only from the developing Colonies, but also from foreign nations. Let us take care that we do not pass through this House repellent legislation which will have the very reverse effect. I submit, therefore, that this Bill should be postponed in order to give our brother nations in that great Commonwealth an opportunity to consider it at the conference next year.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Turton: If I may be permitted, Mr. Speaker, there are one or two points with which I should like to deal in reply. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) seemed to think that this Bill did not go far enough in the reduction of immunity. He has to remember, as I said before, that in this country we have to comply as far as we can with international law. We are doing so; some countries are not.
It is very desirable that some of those countries should be encouraged to improve what they do, because it is difficult for some of our diplomatic servants to fulfil their duties without having that immunity. But certainly we are intending to see if we cannot improve on the number of 2,500. I think that we had better see how we get on. It may be that after this Bill has been passed and put into operation, we shall have other thoughts about these matters, but I have made a note of what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
I do not think that he went very far wrong except when he referred to the 35 civil cases. Those are not cases but points of disagreement which have been reported to us, and considering that there are 2,500 foreigners living in a strange land who have to get their lodgings or furnished rooms I do not think that is a very, very high proportion. I gave that figure because one reads in the Press great stories of the large number of abuses there are of this privilege. I gave the figure for motoring offences and the figure for civil cases. I do not know—the hon. Gentleman for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) might be able to get a comparable figure amongst another section of the population—but I would have said that only 35—not cases but points of disagreement—concerning the 2,500 people here was not very bad.

Mr. Robens: But surely these points of disagreement must have reached the stage when there was real conflict, otherwise they would not have been reported to the Foreign Office. There must have been lots of cases where there was disagreement but in which there was a friendly settlement. These, however, are cases which obviously have turned from disagreement to real conflict and have had to be reported to, and resolved by, the Foreign Office.

Mr. Turton: Reported to us. What happens is that we go into the matter and normally there is an arbitration, and the foreign embassy abides by whatever the arbitrator suggests. There is thus, in fact, a settlement. Then there is the position, whether in civil or criminal processes—and let us not hide from the fact that in both criminal and civil processes there is an immunity—when we have to find out, on its being reported to us, whether the head of the mission is desirous of waiving the immunity. In any case, even if he is not so desirous, in certain civil actions there is arbitration but where it is a grave criminal case, then our action is to declare that person non grata, not acceptable to this country. He then leaves this country. That seems to me to be a reasonable way of dealing with it.
With regard to motoring offences, it is clear from the Report that all these motor cars have to be insured against third party risks. There is no abuse in that direction. I believe that there is a danger of exaggerating this position. I realise its importance, but remedies are provided; arbitration in civil processes, reporting the case to the Foreign Office and the withdrawal of the name from the Sheriff's list in grave cases, civil or criminal. I think that is the answer to the question posed by the hon. Member for Islington, East which he asked me specially to answer.
The only thing I have not dealt with is the question of C.D. plates. I have repeated again and again that the carrying of such plates means absolutely nothing. It is not for the Foreign Office to

bring in legislation as to what people do or do not put upon their motor cars. All I can tell the House is that in order to see that the heads of missions have some way of indicating the nature of their duties, the Foreign Office sees that they have a special plaque, which is only carried by the head of the mission and is displayed to policemen on duty so that proper facilities can be given. That is the only way in which we recognise the diplomat in his motor car.

Captain Duncan: My right hon. Friend is now speaking for the Government and not for the Foreign Office. Cannot he do something to ensure that the carrying of C.D. plates can be a diplomatic privilege?

Mr. Turton: It would be very improper for me to announce legislation which would be introduced by the Minister of Transport. I have told the House on previous occasions that many curious emblems are displayed on motor cars, which I believe to be a great mistake. I warn hon. Members that some of them are in peril. Many of them have on their motor cars special grilles, which they believe to give them special privileges. I am sure they are justified in having them, but it is hard for them to say that other people should not have certain letters upon their cars, because it gives them some extra distinction.
In reply to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes), I would say that this Bill does not affect the Commonwealth representatives. I have noted what the hon. and learned Gentleman said. He said that the Bill will defeat the expansion of the Commonwealth. I consider that he has no ground for making that allegation, and I hope that upon reconsideration he will find himself able to vote for it.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. R. Thompson.]

Committee Tomorrow.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

6.53 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is a very short and simple Bill. Its provisions are quite straightforward, and I hope that it will prove generally acceptable. Hon. Members will readily appreciate the necessity for it. Over the past eleven years the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Acts have provided £45 million for England and Wales and £20 million for Scotland towards water supply and sewerage schemes in rural localities. These sums will have been fully pledged by the early part of next year and we are therefore now seeking another £30 million for England and Wales and £10 million for Scotland, which will last another five years at the present rate of progress. In short, we are asking that the total amount for England, Wales and Scotland shall be increased from £65 million to £105 million.
These are substantial sums, particularly in the context of current events, and I think the House will expect a word from me upon the reason for these contributions and upon our past stewardship of the money expended. I do not believe that the reason for the contributions is in dispute. For more than 20 years, ever since the first Rural Water Supplies Act of 1934, they have been accepted by both sides. It has been accepted that there should be Exchequer assistance towards these vital services in rural areas, where the cost is inevitably high in relation to the capacity of the consumers and ratepayers. The services relate to basic needs, and without this assistance it is quite certain that a number of rural localities will have no means and no prospect of supply.
As to our past stewardship, since the 1944 Act, in England and Wales £15 million worth of water schemes and £12 million worth of sewerage schemes have been completed. That is the total expenditure; not the amount of grant. At this moment, £40 million worth of water

schemes and £28 million worth of sewerage schemes are in progress. That gives a total of £95 million; £55 million for water, and £40 million for sewerage. In Scotland, water schemes worth £6 million and sewerage schemes worth £1·7 million have been completed, and water schemes worth £13 million and sewerage schemes worth £3 million are now in progress. In relation to both cases—England and Wales, and Scotland—there is a third category, of schemes approved, towards which Exchequer contributions have been pledged but which have not yet been started.
That brings me conveniently to the point which, I believe, will be of main concern to hon. Members, namely, the present rate of progress. Most hon. Members are aware that there are many schemes upon which local authorities are anxious to embark but which we cannot authorise. Where there is a substantial Exchequer subvention at stake there has to be a limit to the amount of work which can be done. At present, the amount of work in hand is the highest since the war. In England and Wales it has risen from £12 million spent in 1953–54 to £14 million in 1954–55. The total value of grant-aided schemes in the current year—that is, up to April, 1956—is likely to be £17 million, and of that £17 million the Exchequer grant constitutes about one-third.
This is not the moment at which it would be very appropriate for me to make general forecasts about the rate of future capital expenditure. All I can say is that we recognise that there are many rural water and sewerage schemes which are urgently needed and which cannot be postponed without serious consequences. Schemes which, in the opinion of the local authorities and my right hon. Friend, are to be regarded as in this category—that is, of great urgency—will still be authorised this year, up to the original total of £17 million. Any scheme that we have already promised to authorise this year will be allowed to proceed. The programme for 1956–57 must obviously be subject to wider considerations, which will affect all similar programmes involving heavy capital expenditure.
Another point which I should make here concerns the increasing share which sewerage schemes are taking in the programme. For some years water schemes


took about 60 per cent. of the money spent. In the last financial year they took very little more than half—53 per cent.—and in the last half year they took only 37 per cent. We calculate that within the next few years the ratio between the two will be roughly 40 per cent. water and 60 per cent. sewerage.
The House may wish to have some forecast of where this latest substantial instalment will leave us in five years' time in relation to the total amount of work to be done. We estimate that the sums now under consideration will carry us on for about another five years.
Any such forecast involves a good deal of guesswork, but, assuming an annual programme of roughly the same size as that which we have now, we might say that in about eight years' time we should have authorised schemes to supply all but isolated properties and the smallest villages with water. In about 15 years we should have authorised sewerage schemes for most of the rural areas needing them.
In the light of these forecasts, I hope I have been able to give the House some idea of the part which this additional £40 million will play in giving our countryside the standard of life in two important particulars which most town dwellers regard as indispensable. Taken against the wider background of rural problems and bearing in mind the growing magnetism of the industrial centres and the need to make the countryside an attractive place in which to live, particularly for the housewife, I do not think—and I hope the House will agree with me—that this is too great a price to pay. I hope hon. Members will concur in that and will agree to give the Bill a Second Reading.

7.2 p.m.

Mr. George Brown: The hon. Member need not worry that the House will ever think this too great a price to pay in order to make the countryside a place in which it is reasonable for the housewife to live.
I am a little surprised that, having told us how long it will take to provide sewerage schemes for the bulk of the countryside, the hon. Member then provides in the Bill for only a third of the money required. He has said that the Bill will carry us on for about five years but

he reckons that the sewerage schemes will take fifteen years and the water schemes eight years to provide for all but the isolated areas. Perhaps the hon. Member who is to answer the debate—I do not know whether it is the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—will tell us why it was decided not to provide all the money that is required. I am sure the House would much rather vote the money required, since apparently we can estimate it with reasonable exactitude, than do so in bits and pieces.
To stand here to support, in a sense, a Bill which comes from the Government is one of those chances which comes to one only once in a while. Eight months ago, in the Parliament which died a little prematurely, with trumpets sounded by hon. Members opposite a good deal prematurely, we had a Bill called the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill, which some of us pointed out did nothing but add to the gain of the moneylenders and increase the cost to the taxpayer and ratepayer. I then told the Parliamentary Secretary that he was making a mistake and that he would do better to apply his mind to what was required. I said that we should have had a Bill which would provide us with the amount of money to enable us to continue the work.
The hon. Gentleman was then a little sceptical; he was rather patronising and thought we were talking without knowledge. After all, he was in the Government and he had behind him all the men in Whitehall who knew better than we did, so he thought, and I was talking "without the book." Curiously enough, we on this side of the House also have access to books, and we knew what was going on.
Eight months later we are able to say, "There it is. How much better if you had done it eight months ago. Now we have had two Bills in two separate Parliaments. The first was unnecessary and noxious and adds to the charges, and the second does what we said should have been done eight months ago."
There is more pleasure in Heaven and on the Opposition benches over one sinner that repenteth, and therefore I am grateful to welcome the hon. Member, eight months too late, to the bench of grace. He has come round to recognise what was not included in his brief eight months ago—that the money was running out and


that he needed more. We are glad to have drawn his attention to it.
I know what happened. The day after the Second Reading debate he went to his office and said, "That chap from Belper last night said this and that; is it true?" That filtered through the office of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and many people wrote minutes about it. Then it filtered all the way up again. Not only the hon. Gentleman but others had not realised that the money had almost run out. That is why we have this Bill, and I am glad to have been of some assistance to the entire rural population of England and Wales. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), who will speak for himself, feels equally happy at having done the same for the rural population of Scotland.
This shows what can be done very late at night, because we got this extra £40 million for the rural population between 11 o'clock and 12.15 a.m. Unfortunately, the newspapers "go to bed" long before that, so the rural population did not know what we were doing for them. We had to suffer our light shining under a bushel unseen, but nevertheless we did good.
That is where I must stop. [HON. MEMBERS "Hear, hear."] I do not mean "stop" in that sense; hon. Members must not get excited. This is not one of those occasions on which I shall stop prematurely. I meant that I should stop my panegyrics of praise and welcome at having the Government supplicants at our bench.
We have been fed in the last few weeks with stories about how tragic the country's economic position has become under this Administration, how different things are from when we had the Election and how important it is to stop all public expenditure which can possibly be stopped. I had the great advantage, Mr. Deputy-Speaker—I do not think you had that advantage because I seem to remember reading something about your driving off at St. Andrews about that time—of attending the Conservative Party Conference at Bournemouth. I do not know how to put the word "Conference" in quotation marks when speaking, but you will understand what I mean.
There I heard the Chancellor explaining how difficult it would be—and I heard

him read a very long lecture to the delegates there assembled on how impossible it would be—for him to accept any of the very nice resolutions on the agenda demanding all sorts of nice things. He read them a lecture against which the policy of the late Sir Stafford Cripps would have been almost beneficence itself. In it he said that all these wonderful things must be postponed.
When I saw the Bill on the Order Paper I wondered how it fitted in with the Chancellor's story, with all the newspaper outpourings of gloom and of tragedy and with the fact that we are to have a special Finance Bill tomorrow. I wondered whether the Ministry of Housing and Local Government had slipped a fast one over the Treasury. On the last occasion we debated this subject it was obvious that the Treasury had slipped a fast one over the Ministry, for we had great trouble in getting the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to defend his own Money Resolution. He left it to the Parliamentary Secretary, who patently knew nothing about it. We sympathised deeply with the hon. Gentleman and did our best to extricate him, and in the end we got the Financial Secretary to speak on his own Resolution and to leave the Parliamentary Secretary in peace.
I thought this was perhaps an occasion on which the Ministry had slipped a fast one over the Treasury in return for that, and, being a fair-minded man, I was satisfied with that. But my sense of fair play was rudely shattered when I heard the hon. Gentleman say that the fact that we were voting the money did not mean that the work would be done. He said it did not follow that rural England would have the work done.

Mr. Tudor Watkins: And Wales.

Mr. Brown: The greater includes the lesser. I hope I may be forgiven for that.

Mr. Watkins: Wales is the more important.

Mr. Brown: What interests the rural population is not what we vote in the House in terms of money. It is whether the pipes will be laid and the sewerage works built. In the circumstances, the Parliamentary Secretary should have gone to the Patronage Secretary and asked for


this Bill to be postponed until after tomorrow. This is one of those capital investments, he told us, which will—I took down his words—have to take their place with all the other capital investments in the light of the economic situation and the announcements that have been made.
I gather that the hon. Gentleman is himself to reply to the debate, and not his hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I ask him for a concrete and firm statement. Is this Bill just window dressing? When he says that this project must take its place with all other capital investment and thus be subject to the same restrictions as those to which all the others are going to be subject, does that mean that although we are voting the money we may well not get the work done?
The hon. Gentleman said just now that this money is sufficient for five years. I take it that he means five years at the old rate at which the work was allowed to be done. Are we to understand from him that the rate at which the work is now to be done is to be considerably slowed down? If so, why have the Government brought the Bill forward? Why are they trying to mislead rural England into thinking that this work is to be undertaken, when in fact it is pretty clear—I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not have interpolated that remark purely on his own initiative—that we are being prepared for a very considerable slowing up of this work?
The hon. Gentleman said that anything promised in the current year up to the extent of £17 million would be allowed to go through. I do not think he would have told us that unless he was preparing us for the news that anything not yet promised or anything that takes the total bill over £17 million will not be allowed to go through. Therefore, it seems to me we have the paradox of a Bill apparently increasing the amount of water and sewerage schemes that are to be carried out in rural England, while at the same time the Minister takes the occasion to warn us that anything not yet promised and anything that will bring the amount of the bill over £17 million will not be done, which means a slowing down, and that from this year onwards this, like all other capital investments, this work is liable to be subjected to the freezing hand of the would-be Iron Chancellor.
I think the hon. Gentleman ought to "come clean". It is not his fault. He can always blame the other Department. He ought to tell us exactly what is in the mind of the Government so that rural England really knows and is not just deluded by the fact that we vote rather more money than the Government intend to spend.
Another point with which the hon. Gentleman ought to deal is the cost of doing the whole job. After all, not only did the Government increase the cost by £20 million in the last miserable Bill which was presented to us, by making the job last for thirty-five years, instead of paying for it as it goes along, but they have been increasing the interest rates of all local authority work ever since. Just because they have deliberately increased the interest rates, it now costs far more to do this work than it would have done before.
This means that the ratepayer pays far more in respect of his own contribution and the taxpayer has to find more by way of grant. Let hon. Members opposite who represent rural areas realise that less of this £30 million for England and Wales will go to grant aid the work than would have gone before because more of it will simply go to pay the higher interest rates.

Mr. Deedes: Mr. Deedesindicated dissent.

Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that is true.
The hon. Gentleman has arranged, not that the local authorities borrow what is necessary after the Government grant has been paid, but that the local authorities borrow the whole lot. The fact that they borrow the whole lot and do so at much increased interest rates means that they pay very much more interest than they would have had to pay before. They get a grant on the cost to them. The cost to them includes their interest rates. Therefore, more of the grant is eaten up by unnecessarily high interest rates due to local authorities being forced to borrow the lot and having to pay much more than is sensible. A good deal of this £30 million is not going to increase or speed up or genuinely help the supply of water and sewerage schemes for rural England but to fertilise the already very prolific areas in the City of London where this money is found.
I find it difficult to understand what the Government are about. One presumably fixes a high rate of interest to discourage people from borrowing. Equally one presumably votes £30 million of public money to encourage people to do the job. What is the point of a financial policy which discourages people from doing the job by putting the interest rate up to 5½ per cent. or whatever the figure is, and at the same time having a Ministry of Housing and Local Government policy which encourages people to do the job at the cost of another £30 million? Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand does—this is a classic example of it.
Under this Government we are running under two completely contrary policies. We want people to do the job, so we give them £30 million. We do not want them to do it, so we increase the interest rates. It is madness. It is costing us much more. It is absolutely stupid and it is only made intelligible by the Parliamentary Secretary's artless interpolation, "Well, of course, tomorrow there will be an announcement. Lots of capital investment is being slowed down and discouraged, and the whole thing will be brought into relationship."
We on these benches would like more of this work to be done. We are much more keen about it than anybody else has been. We should like more of this work to be done, and in that sense we welcome the £30 million. We wish that enough money had been granted to cover the whole amount of work outstanding. But we do not like the business of pouring a lot of this money into the moneylenders' pockets instead of genuinely doing the work. We are also very frightened by the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that the whole scheme is going to be slowed down.
In the last discussion that we had on this subject it was said that the rate of grant in Scotland was twice the rate of grant in England and Wales, and an hon. Member opposite said that generally speaking the rate of grant in England and Wales was about one-third whereas the rate of the grant in Scotland ran at about 60 per cent.

Captain J. A. L. Duncan: As against 28 per cent., which it is going to be now.

Mr. Brown: The hon. and gallant Member for South Angus (Captain Duncan) is forecasting another Government rate. All sorts of attempts are being made to forecast what the Chancellor is going to say tomorrow. Up to now Scotland has been getting a grant of about 60 per cent. and England and Wales has been getting a grant of about one-third.
My Scottish grandmother provided for me to be informed on many things concerning Scotland, and I realise that in Scotland there are many areas where the economics of this matter are extremely difficult. But then there are many areas in England and Wales, too, where that is true. If my grandmother will forgive me, I think our Scottish friends sometimes overplay the difference between the two parts of the Kingdom in this respect, and certainly our Welsh friends have good reason to kick about this difference in the grant.
I am not objecting to the Scots getting 60 per cent. In fact, I should have thought that that was a much fairer rate of grant than the one-third which prevails in the rest of the country. I am upset, however, that the hon. Gentleman, who is himself an English Member and an English Minister, should keep telling us that we get only one-third or thereabouts as against the two-thirds which our Scottish friends get, and should never think that he ought to explain why that is so. I should like to hear, in his reply, why we are so ill-treated in England and Wales, and in my own county of Derbyshire; why, in fact, our grant is so little, and whether he is prepared to have another look at this matter to see whether tradition and custom have not built up a wholly unfair situation in England and Wales, based on an assumption that is not correct.
If the Bill really represented a determination on the part of the Government, not only to carry on this work at the rate at which it has been going, but to increase its speed over the next few years, we should welcome it. That, no doubt, was what was intended when the Bill was drafted by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Since then, fate and nemesis in the shape of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has thoroughly mismanaged our affairs, and who for rather miserable electioneering prospects was rather less than honest eight months


ago, has overtaken it. As a result lots of things, very unpleasant, now have to be done. The Bill, as presented to us, was apparently an attempt to carry on the work of giving rural England the amenities that it has the right to expect at the same rate that their provision has proceeded in past years, but it is quite clear—and the Parliamentary Secretary made it even more clear—that we may well expect that this is to be slowed down because of the chill economic winds which the Government have brought upon us.
Obviously we cannot refuse to applaud the Bill—we should be promoting it if we ourselves were in power—but we cannot applaud circumstances which mean that we are not going to get this work done. Therefore, the plaudits which no doubt the hon. Gentleman hopes to get from us are a little reduced from full measure by the unhappiness which we feel about his financial colleagues at the Treasury, who have prevented him from doing what he would, no doubt, like to do.

7.23 p.m.

Sir Harold Roper: The Bill raises a matter which is of great topical interest in Cornwall at the present time. This is so in my own constituency in particular, because during the very height of the holiday season, owing to the dry summer, a part of my constituency, which is well-known to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, found itself suffering gravely from a failure of water supply.
The people there were saved from a complete lack of water only by the excellent work done by the fire brigade, which transported by road in Cornwall during that period close on one million gallons of water. This Bill greatly affects Cornwall, because Cornwall is so short generally of water supplies. In Cornwall, the proportion of householders who are entirely without water is between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent. The percentage is roughly double the overall percentage for England and Wales. What has happened during this dry summer has created widespread concern as to whether the requirements for water in Cornwall generally have not been under-estimated.
As I go around, I find the feeling gaining ground that reconsideration should be given to the major De Lank scheme. This is not the time in which to go into details of water supply schemes,

but this scheme is relevant to this discussion because it is a very expensive one. As originally drawn up some years ago, it was to cost £4 million, and now, no doubt, it would cost considerably more. I am not asking the Parliamentary Secretary in winding up this debate to deal with the De Lank scheme, because it is now in the hands of the county council, which, I hope, will be reporting to him in the course of the next few months.
I trust that when the Parliamentary Secretary receives that report he will consider most carefully in consultation with the local authorities whether that scheme should be carried into effect as soon as circumstances permit.
There is also the question of sewerage. Cornwall is very backward in sewerage, which also costs a great deal of money. I hope that the passing of this Bill will enable the Government to have another look at an individual scheme covering the parish of St. Breward in my constituency. It is a scheme which is to cost about £33,000. The Ministry is proposing to contribute only 20 per cent. of that amount, which is much less than the normal of one-third of the total cost. The Ministry has given reasons for making such a low contribution, but, personally, I find that the reasons do not carry conviction.
I hope that the Bill will have an easy passage and that, when it is passed, the Government will find themselves in a position to reconsider the matter of the St. Breward sewerage, and that, in consultation with the local authority, there will be a re-examination of the De Lank scheme.

7.27 p.m.

Mr. Tudor Watkins: I welcome the introduction of this Bill. Going back to June, 1951, I remember the then Minister introducing a similar Bill with far greater information than we have had this afternoon. I regret very much that the Parliamentary Secretary has so far not given us information which would indicate at least the number of schemes that are in progress and the number of schemes that have been completed. I hope that in fairness to his own Department he will give an indication to the rural districts of


what has actually been done by his Department.
Each time I rise to speak on social service questions, I find that England and Wales are lumped together. A letter has come from the Minister on each occasion after I have spoken giving statistics for Wales. Surely we are as much entitled as Scotland to have the figures given in this House. I understand that separate figures are given for Scotland.
In my constituency, 19 of the local authorities are interested in water schemes and sewerage, and no doubt the two county councils have a watching brief on what is being said in this House. In South Wales and parts of England no fewer than 15 authorities derive water from Breconshire and Radnorshire. What concerns me is that my own constituency is satisfied that it does not get the piped water supply and sewerage schemes it should have.
I particularly ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look at the two Reports of the Council for Wales. Special mention has been made of the particular circumstances in mid-Wales and Wales generally in connection with water supply and sewerage schemes. The Government White Paper on Rural Wales said this in its summary of recommendations:
The Government … will look with special sympathy at an application for grant towards the cost of a water or sewerage scheme. …
I hope that, if he is unable to reply tonight, the Parliamentary Secretary will let Welsh hon. Members know, or will let me know, what has happened since that White Paper was published. Are the authorities in Wales to have special consideration, or even the consideration given to Scotland of an average of 60 per cent. on any scheme put forward? I have not seen any change since the declaration of policy in regard to rural depopulation in mid-Wales.
Water supply and sewerage schemes put an undue burden on local rates. Mention has been made of the difficulties in connection with joint schemes of local authorities. I wish to pose one or two questions to the Parliamentary Secretary in the hope that his Department will see that something is done about that problem. I have information in connection with all the schemes in my

constituency. Every year I ask the people in the Welsh Regional Office for a detailed list of all the schemes in my constituency and I watch every move. I am glad of the information I get from the Welsh Regional Office, but what concerns me is the tendency—perhaps it is a good one—to have regional water schemes. Those schemes, however, have some great disadvantages. They have been talked about sufficiently long; the Abergwessin scheme has been talked about since 1947. At that time it was to cost half a million pounds; what it would cost now I do not know.
I am concerned about the urgency of the scheme being undertaken in that locality. It is a district where rural depopulation is greatest. I instance one village, Beulah, where, in a population of nearly 100, eighteen houses get a supply from a small spring by the side of the trunk road from Llanwrtyd Wells to Builth Wells and is 18 inches below the ground. Imagine elderly people filling buckets and cans there, with traffic passing alongside. Imagine the situation in wet weather with surface water running into the well. Imagine the feeling in that locality when an officer reported to the council that a "gentleman of the road"—commonly called a tramp—had bathed his feet in the well. Nothing has been done about this supply as a great regional scheme is awaited.
If we have to wait for regional schemes surely someone from the Department should see that some temporary expedient is allowed to these localities in order that people might at least have piped water which does not need boiling. Although this is a Second Reading debate, I hope no one will criticise me for bringing this matter to the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary and the House. There is another big scheme called the Llanbwchllyn scheme, which is to cost £235,000. It has been on the drawing board since 1949, but some action is still awaited or some pressure from the Government Department to get local authorities working on these particular schemes.
I have in mind a village where there are two supplies of water, one private and one public. The private supply is far better than the public supply. No one seems to be interested in the state of the water from the public supply except that the medical officer issues a notice


saying that the water should be boiled, and that has been going on for years. The Parliamentary Secretary must look at the situation arising as a result of Government policy. How can these schemes proceed in view of recent decisions of the Government and the increase in interest charges? In the South Wales branch of the Rural District Councils' Association, whose meeting I attended recently as a vice-president, it was reported that because of the increase in interest charges a £50,000 scheme would mean an additional cost to the rates of £447 a year. Imagine such a call to authorities where the product of a penny rate is so very low. Brecknock Rural District Council will have to find £1,000 a year more because of increased interest charges and that will mean a 3½d. rate. There is no hope of local authorities putting schemes into operation with these extra charges. New Radnor has a very small scheme which, because of increased charges, would cost an extra 1s. 6d. rate.
I welcome what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) when he asked whether we can be assured that an extraordinary grant will be given. I join with him also in his remarks about the Act passed eight months ago. That has tended to make matters far worse. At the annual meeting of the Rural District Councils' Association the Parliamentary Secretary was questioned on the effect it would have on the burden on local authorities and I have with me the reply he gave. I am very glad that he is prepared to look into some of the difficult cases which may arise. There are some difficult cases.
Local authorities now bear the brunt of all construction before grant is made. On the experience gained since the passing of that Act of Parliament, I hope that special consideration will be given to some of the large regional schemes where the product of a 1d. rate is so low. One of the authorities in my constituency, Brecknock Rural District Council, has to pay £64,000 on a scheme before it can get a penny back in grant. Surely it was not the intention of the Ministry to deprive that local authority where the product of a 1d. rate is about £300. Surely something can be done to make a payment on account in such cases. There are cases of hardship and I should welcome any assistance the Government can give in that direction.
I was glad to hear that the proportion in the amount to be allocated towards water supplies and sewerage schemes is changing because the sewerage schemes are catching up on the water supply schemes. In the constituency I represent there is a great deal of work to be done on water supply schemes, and sewerage schemes are complementary to water supply.
What concerns me most about sewerage schemes is the activity of river boards. I am glad of that activity, from the standpoint of hygiene, but some local authorities' sewerage schemes may do away with obsolete plant in a town in a rural locality and no grant is possible when the authority has scrapped an obsolete scheme for the sake of getting a sewerage scheme to meet the approval of the river board.
That is an important matter and I hope that the Minister will consider it, for Section 1 (1) of the 1944 Act does not provide for grants in that direction. I also ask whether it is possible to get a greater uniformity in connection with the attitude of county councils towards making their contributions to rural district councils in relation to that Act of Parliament.
Sometimes—and I am very glad to find it, at least in Wales—there are authorities who get grants. The Ministry of Agriculture makes grants when the farming community is affected, and farming is at a great disadvantage if water supplies are not allowed. To what extent is the Minister of Agriculture helping these water supply schemes with grants? Are figures available either for England and Wales or separately for Wales?
Local authorities have plenty of faith, but
faith without works is dead.
What they need with the faith is a greater encouragement by the grants that are made available, particularly if the problem of depopulation is significant, as it is with us. Do the Government still agree with the former Minister for Welsh Affairs that consideration will be given to some of the authorities with a 1d. rate product in order to get decent water supplies and sewerage schemes, so that people may be attracted once again to the countryside?

7.43 p.m.

Mr. Roderic Bowen: I rise to associate myself with the observations of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins). The situation in his part of Wales is substantially the same as it is in mine. While I make no complaint about our hon. Friends from Cornwall and other parts of England pointing out their difficulties, it is certainly true that our difficulties in respect of both water supplies and sewerage are substantially greater than in any other part of England and Wales. If only for that reason, I welcome the Bill and hope that its application will do something further to improve matters in both these spheres.
I should like to associate myself with what the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor had to say about information. I think we could be told quite specifically what has been done, what is being done at the moment and what we can expect in the immediate future. When I say "we," I refer not only to people in positions of public responsibility but to the public as a whole.
One of the great difficulties so far as local problems are concerned is that one can never really ascertain why an area is not supplied with water or why a certain sewerage scheme has not been put forward. The public is entitled to be enlightened in this respect. Not unnaturally, perhaps, the local authority throws the blame upon the Government and upon the Ministry involved the Ministry throws back the ball and then there is a situation when no one seems to know why nothing has been done about an acute problem. I believe that by trying to pinpoint the responsibility for lack of progress in any direction, we might help specifically in the solution of some of the actual difficulties
One particular difficulty, of course, is the question of finance. As far as local authorities in my area are concerned, the real bogy is not a lack of enthusiasm for promoting water or sewerage schemes. If local authorities carry out too many schemes, they find themselves in a very precarious financial position. One of the items which causes delay is the substantial time lag between the promotion of a scheme and notification to the local authority of the amount which the Treasury is to contribute.
I should like the Minister to see not only that the grants, when they do come, are very substantial indeed—for that is the real cause of the hold-up in all these schemes in rural areas in Wales—but that there is the least possible delay in informing local authorities of their position financially in relation to the schemes so far as grants are concerned.
Part of the trouble is due to a failure on the part of different local authorities to combine effectively to produce workable schemes. Wherever the fault lies, whether it is a question of finance, lack of co-operation or the holding up of smaller schemes because of the existence of a large regional scheme, we are entitled to know the exact reasons for a hold-up in any direction. The fact remains that this is one of the main features in connection with rural depopulation.
I am satisfied that until we can provide our rural areas with basic social services, we shall not be able to commence to combat the drift from the countryside. One particular aspect is obviously the provision of a decent, clean, wholesome water supply and, in conjunction with that, a sewerage scheme. Because I think that the Bill will do something in that regard, I welcome it. I hope that the funds which will be provided through the medium of the Bill will be distributed generously to those areas where the situation is particularly acute.

7.48 p.m.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: I support the Bill and I hope that the splendid rate of progress of the last few years will, as far as possible, be maintained in the light of the general economic situation. I say "splendid rate" because, certainly in my area, many schemes have gone ahead. The trouble, of course, is that as water is extended into the rural areas, the farms and parishes on the fringe not merely have their longing for water accentuated because it is so near to them, but they have inevitably taken steps in advance of the arrival of water mains to expand their production or recast their farm plans in the light of other legislative requirements.
The debate has tended to emphasise water from the amenity point of view. Clearly, in the countryside water is now something more than an amenity. It is


fair to say that electricity and water supplies are regarded as necessities; and the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen) connected them with the drift from the land. That is quite clear, for in the absence of water and, up to a point, electricity, housing in an area may be sterilised. Without an adequate water supply one cannot, for example, apply for a reconditioning grant. One will not get it.
It is essential, if the people are to live in the countryside, that the services should be provided which enable them to reach the standard of living to which their earnings entitle them. If there is not electricity and if there is not water, then, as I have found, people do not want to live in what otherwise is a perfectly satisfactory house, with a job near at hand.
Over and above the amenity side, water is the most vital raw material in food production. I would remind the House that not only in milk production, for example, is clean water essential. In dry areas, such as the one in which I live, unless there are assured supplies of water in drought years one cannot carry on that land the same weight of livestock as one may wish to carry, having regard to the rest of one's farm programme. Other agricultural requirements are always demanding more and more water to be readily available—the development of crop spraying, and the growth, at any rate in eastern England, of irrigation. It will pay a farmer who has a valuable and small crop to buy water at a very great price in times of drought. It may be worth buying water at 3s. per 1,000 gallons, at a cost of £4 in water, to put an inch of water on an acre of land.
The supply of water in the rather drought-bound areas is not only vital to keep the population there, and to stop them drifting away to the towns, but is fundamental to the food production programme over the years. Therefore, I very much hope that in considering the impetus which can be given to rural water schemes and their expansion the Government will bear in mind the fact that water is a fundamental requirement for all other aspects of agricultural development, and that an assured supply of water is the key to the problem.
I believe that, along with electricity, the spread of water schemes is a most valuable way of investing capital in our

agriculture and land. If over the next few years we can build a wide network of farm water supplies, then whatever form our agriculture in future may take, whatever changes science may induce in our ideas about the rotation of crops and so forth, we shall be able to take advantage of them, having the fundamental requirement of a nation-wide water supply.
As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) pointed out, interest rates have risen, but I myself do not see the dilemma with which he finds himself faced. This Bill provides a sum out of which, if the local authorities see fit to promote schemes, a grant is available. Nevertheless, higher interest rates make local authorities choose carefully, and they pose to them the question, "Is this water scheme really necessary now, or can we defer it perhaps for a year or two until the rates go down?" It is a function, as I understand it, of monetary policy to induce such forethought.
When we consider the progress we should make, the rate of it, or the slowing up that there may have to be, I hope that the Government will weigh the alternatives which are related. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) referred to river boards. I feel that capital expenditure available to the countryside should be concentrated upon positive action such as the spread of water. Perhaps it may be possible to accept some slowing up of such projects as the improvement in the standards of pollution by compelling the replacement of obsolete sewerage plant, and so on. I know from my own experience that that difficulty tends to arise when the river boards enforce their anti-pollution policies.
It may well be that it would be better to postpone that upgrading of pollution standards, and not to slow up the spread of the more positive action, the provision of rural water supplies. I should like to feel that all water supply and sewerage schemes and river boards' policies are related and surveyed as a whole, and that any slowing up that may be necessary will be concentrated upon the Flowing up of the amenities that we may like in a year or two, but not upon the necessities of today and tomorrow.
There are many areas, parishes, farms which are awaiting water supplies, which


have their plans for expansion, from which we are looking for a saving in imports of food from abroad, and so on. However, I do not want to deal with that now. I want merely to emphasise that water supplies have this productive aspect as well as the amenity one.

7.57 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I should like to support the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. J. E. B. Hill) in his appeal to the Minister that there should be no slowing down of the rate of progress with these rural water supply and sewerage schemes, though I feel that the hon. Member is a little optimistic in expecting that there will not be. The Minister has said that this Bill will mean an additional £30 million for England and Wales and £10 million for Scotland. I, too, should like to know what proportion of this additional £40 million is earmarked to meet the increased interest charges which were introduced about six or eight months ago. I think the Minister at that time told us that it would mean, over 30 years, an increase of about 70 per cent. in the Government contribution towards borrowing money, instead of their making it by way of annual capital grants for schemes -in a particular financial year.
I would draw the Minister's attention to a resolution passed by the Cornish branch of the Rural District Councils' Association towards the end of July. It deplored the increased interest charges, which, it felt, would slow down the progress of these improvement schemes. Since then there has been at least one increase—if not two increases—in the interest rates. The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Sir H. Roper) referred to the big De Lank scheme for Cornwall. If the Ministry would provide most of the money for the grandiose De Lank scheme I, too, would put up both hands in favour of it, but I recall that some years ago, when the scheme was mooted, it depended on a contribution of 2s. 6d. from the rates of Camborne-Redruth, in my constituency.
I think that the scheme overlooked the fact that in West Cornwall we have ample water for our own needs. So much is that the case that two local authorities in my constituency, the Camborne-Redruth Urban District Council and the Kerrier

Rural District Council, have put up a joint proposal to the Ministry for a scheme based on a reservoir at Stithians which would supply the increased needs of an urban district of something over 35,000 population and 22,500 acres for a long time to come, and indeed for the foreseeable future.
I have told the House many times that at Stithians we have a village school of about 130 children where the sanitation is abominable. It cannot be remedied by the local authority because a water supply is needed, although there is ample water in the parish. The local education authority must wait for a public water supply before it can be introduced into the school, and then be followed by a sewerage scheme.
Ten days ago a public meeting was called at the village of St. Day which is in the urban district of Camborne—Redruth. I was asked to attend. It was a very full meeting, and I have in my hand a weekly newspaper's report occupying two columns. The meeting evoked widespread interest. The people of the community are demanding that they should be supplied in the near future with a proper water supply and a sewerage scheme. The chairman of the meeting said that the village of St. Day had been in existence for a thousand years. It stands in the middle of what was a couple of centuries ago the copper belt of Europe. We are sorry to know that the right hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) is seriously ill and cannot be with us tonight. His forebears were very closely connected with the running of the copper mines in that locality.
A sewerage scheme has already been prepared for the village of St. Day and adjoining villages of Lanner and Carharrack which will cost £250,000. The rateable value of that ward of the urban district is £8,200. Therefore, the financing of this scheme by the ward alone would involve a rate of £2 in the £, whilst for the urban district as a whole it would mean a rate of 2s. 6d. in the £. In addition we need reinforcements of our water supply in the urban district—the Stithians scheme, which would involve an expenditure of £360,000.
The village of St. Day had to rely until four or five years ago on water retailed at 1d. a bucket. Then the urban district thought that it would do the best it could


to provide a public supply. It did so but the resources of water are so inadequate that for the greater part of the day, particularly in the summer months, housewives are unable to obtain any water in their houses. They were very vocal about it, and I do not blame them.
No council houses have ever been built in the villages of St. Day and Carharrack. They cannot be built until there is a proper water supply and a sewerage scheme. They are compact villages with a vitality and a life of their own. They ought to be permitted to continue, but they will decay absolutely unless we can obtain these modern amenities.
I inquired of the sanitary inspector for the urban district how sanitation was managed in these villages, which are very closely built. He told me that no fewer than 260 sanitary buckets have to be emptied every week by the sanitation staff. I leave it to the imagination of hon. Members as to how long men will be available and will be found ready to undertake this most distasteful task. The time will come shortly when people will simply refuse to do it.
We cannot face the huge expenditure involved in providing these modern amenities unless there are substantial Government grants. Grants of 60 per cent. have been mentioned in the case of Scotland. We in Cornwall live in rural localities which in many cases are widely dispersed, particularly in the district of Camborne and Redruth. We must have some help. In the course of a Second Reading debate last February I drew the attention of the Minister to the fact that we ought to benefit by definition of "rural locality." I hope that if representatives of the urban district ask to see the Minister soon about implementing these schemes he will appreciate the real difficulties with which we have to contend, and will give us generous grants along these lines.

8.8 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. Nixon Browne): I should like to say a few words about Scotland.

Mr. G. Brown: Is this the winding-up speech?

Mr. Browne: No, Sir. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Govern-

ment has already said, the object of the Bill is to increase from a total of £20 million to £30 million the amount of Exchequer grant that can be paid to Scottish local authorities for water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal in rural areas. The Bill is probably the penultimate step in the completion of Scotland's rural water and drainage needs. The original Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act granted £6·375 million. This was increased in the Water (Scotland) Act, 1949 to £20 million, and now by this Bill the cash amount available is raised to £30 million.

Mr. G. Brown: The Minister has already told us that.

Mr. Browne: Of the £20 million already available, £17 million has actually been spent or pledged, and of this £6½ million has actually been paid out, but in order to preserve continuity of work it is now necessary to increase the total amount of grant available. The additional £10 million now sought for Scotland under the Bill is estimated to be sufficient for promises of grant to be made over five or six years.
Substantial progress has been made in providing rural water supplies and drainage in Scotland. Up to 30th September, 1955, schemes had been completed costing the Exchequer and the authorities together about £7·7 million, divided as to £6 million for water and £1·7 million for drainage.

Mr. G. Brown: We have been given those figures, too. This is repetition.

Mr. Browne: It does no harm to give them. I want to get them on record. Scotland is an important country.
At that date, schemes not yet complete were in progress estimated to cost in all about £16 million, on which work to the value of £8 million had been done. The total value of work done in Scotland, therefore, since the war is close on £16 million, that is £12½ million for water and nearly £3½ million for drainage. Another £8 million will have to be spent to complete the schemes. At present we are carrying out about £3½ million of work on water supplies and drainage schemes in Scotland every year.

Mr. G. Brown: The same figures again.

Mr. Browne: They are not entirely the same. I am giving many more figures than were given by my hon. Friend.
It will interest the House to know that of the 349 grant-aided schemes undertaken since the war and now producing water supplies, not one has been reported to the Department of Health as having failed in the severe test of adequacy which the drought of this year has imposed. The situation has been different, however, elsewhere.
Probably the worst example occurred in the Easter Ross and Black Isle district of Ross-shire. My hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod) has actively brought the position in this district to the notice of the Government. Farmers have had to carry water at a time when all possible labour was needed for the harvest, and in particular they have been drawing water from the River Conon at Conon Bridge. In addition, the county council has installed in the Black Isle area eight tanks which it has kept filled from the Muir of Ord supply.
Clearly, these are makeshift arrangements, and a solution must be found in the regional water scheme based on Loch Glass, on which today about £320,000 has already been spent. Naturally enough, the county council and my hon. Friend wish to accelerate progress, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who must, of course, hold the balance between the various local authorities so far as grant is concerned, is most anxious to do what he can to help. The county council has asked to be received in deputation about this scheme, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State is arranging to meet representatives of the council and of the local branch of the National Farmers' Union at an early date, when the whole problem of the district will be discussed.
The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) spoke of the rate of grant in Scotland, which he compared with 30 per cent. in England. The average grant in Scotland is 60 per cent., individual rates varying between 15 per cent. and 85 per cent. There are three reasons for that.
First, we have a lower density of population in the rural areas, which means longer mains. The second is the geological reason. We have almost no

underground water supplies in Scotland, and must rely on surface water brought often from very considerable distances from the hills. The third reason is that the figures are not truly comparable.
In England, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the local authority receives grants from the Exchequer and the county council, so that the cost is split three ways. In Scotland, the county council does the work, so the cost is split two ways between the county and the Exchequer.

Mr. G. Brown: I understood that the hon. Gentleman was not, in fact, replying to the debate, but now I gather that he is engaged very largely in replying to me. I did not criticise the grants in Scotland. I specifically said that I was quite happy if they were getting 60 per cent. I asked what was the justification for us getting less than 60 per cent. in England. Some of the things enumerated in his reply by the hon. Gentleman in relation to Scotland—except for the three-way split—apply also to England. If the hon. Gentleman is charged with replying to me, is he saying that we could not have a rate of grant of 60 per cent. in England because that would mean less for Scotland? If he is not saying that, what does it matter to him in Scotland what rate of grant we have in England and Wales? Should he not leave that particular fight to us down here?

Mr. Browne: I should hesitate to speak for England just as much as the right hon. Gentleman opposite would to speak in this House for Scotland. The geological reason is the important reason why it costs more to produce water in Scotland than it does in England. I think that answer is entirely satisfactory, and it is also geologically correct.
To sum up, we are making steady pro-press. Our work is well under way in Scotland, and it has been done well. There is still much to do, and we need this Bill to help us to cope with the task ahead.

Mr. William Ross: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if there is any contemplated change in the rate of grant in Scotland, and if he will make clear what he meant when he said that the rate varies but the average is 60 per cent.?

Mr. Browne: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means by a contemplated change of rate. There is no immediate contemplated change of rate in the approval of schemes. We shall have to see how we go, but this extra £10 million will allow us to approve schemes in theory, as we are doing now. The hon. Gentleman's other question was about grants. The rate is not 60 per cent.; it varies, as I said, between 15 and 85 per cent., and it is based largely on the weight that is put on the local ratepayers. Every factor is taken into consideration, and there is fairness as between one local authority and another.

Mr. Watkins: What kind of authority gets the 85 per cent. in Scotland?

Mr. Browne: The authority that needs it most.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. Sidney Dye: The contributions to this debate so far seem to have come from hon. Members representing the extreme parts of the country—north, south, east and west—and the one contribution that has so far come from Norfolk, that by the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. J. E. B. Hill), was addressed very largely to the need of agriculture for a piped water supply to increase production and to meet the requirements on the farms.
The experience of the hon. Gentleman in public life has, I believe, very largely been concerned with getting water out of the country into the rivers and to the sea as quickly as possible. I have spent the greater part of my public life in trying to bring water to rural districts, villages and farms, and I want to make some criticisms, not only of the speech of the Minister but of the Bill itself, from my experience, covering more than twenty years, of administration by county and district councils.
We are now speaking under a shadow, which was indicated by the hon. Gentleman himself when he said that the programme for 1956–57 will be subject to wider considerations. I thought that contradicted his estimate of the progress that we were likely to make in the next five years, for, after all, he said that the estimated expenditure for the current year was at the rate of £17 million on water and sewerage schemes, and the

amount provided for the next five years was at about that rate.
Yet the hon. Gentleman said that he could not make any statement with regard to the programme for 1956–57 because of the wider considerations, these no doubt being the clamour that is going round the country for a reduction in Government expenditure. If the intention of the Government appears to be an all-round cut in the social services, and particularly in developments in rural England, our rate of progress will be slowed down.
This is the wrong time to slow down the rate of development of water supply and sewerage schemes in the countryside. There is one urgent reason why we should not do so. It was brought to my notice as a member of Norfolk County Council, when I found that Norfolk would be required to receive in organised parties no less than 100,000 evacuees from the big cities in the event of the outbreak of hostilities. That would mean that people would be brought from London, or from the Midland cities, and sent to rural villages, without adequate water or sewerage arrangements.
If we are to face up to our obligations in Civil Defence, we may have to put into operation schemes for the evacuation of our big cities within the next few years. I should have thought that we would be asked to speed up the arrangements for providing water and sewerage facilities in these areas. We are told by those in charge of military arrangements that we must not allow the present talks to lead us to ease our arrangements for Civil Defence, or for any other defence matter.
What discussions have taken place between the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Home Office about the arrangements which will be made for evacuation in the event of an emergency? If great numbers of people are suddenly to be deposited in the country, will there be the means of maintaining them in health and decency? Has there been any communication between the Home Office and the Ministry of Agriculture to see that the two are working hand in hand in the arrangements for the evacuation from cities to the country and the provision of essential means for looking after those people? If Civil Defence is


important and urgent, then that is an aspect which should receive immediate attention.
Another matter which has already been mentioned is that of the flight of people from the land to the towns which, at present, is more rapid than at any time in recent years and which is denuding the countryside of labour, because of the lack of essential amenities such as water, sewerage and electricity. I was interested in listening to "The Archers" last night when Dan Archer was interviewing a prospective employee. After the interview he went in and Doris asked him how he had been getting on. He said, "It used to be that the women would follow the men wherever they went to work, but he has gone home to ask him wife whether he can come."
That is an indication of the present position, which is that unless amenities are provided for the wife and family a man essentially needed in agriculture if we are to maintain, let alone increase, our production will not be retained. In the light of these problems—getting men on the land and the prospect of being asked in the event of hostilities, even perhaps before they break out, to receive large numbers of people from the big cities—there should be no doubt whatever about whether we should reduce the rate of progress; rather should we speed it up.
The problem can be viewed from the position of people living in the villages. We have begun the job. Some are getting the advantages of piped water and sewerage as well as electricity. Others are not getting it and so the farmers in villages which have not got these advantages are losing their men. They are finding a bigger problem than those in areas where schemes have been carried out. There is also the position of council house estates. They now have piped water from a local well, bore, or other local source, or have it brought in from a distance and they also have sewerage facilities. Very often in the same village one finds council houses with local sewerage arrangements which are polluting other people's wells and causing a nuisance. So there is a need for each village to be fully supplied with these facilities so that there is not one half of a village with the amenities while the other half is without them, but still contributing rates for those people with the facilities.
We cannot stop where we are now in fairness to the whole population. We must have this programme of rural development carried through in the interest of the nation and in the interest of fairness to the people, for, because of our financial system, those without the amenities have to contribute towards the cost of them for the benefit of those who have them. In many of our localities we have some very crude arrangements. In fact, just recently two letters came to me, one from Lancashire, from a person who had been staying in the village of Brisley in Norfolk. Commenting on the various amenities, the writer says:
As for the sanitary arrangements, these are shocking. I met a lady from London who has no running water; no electric light or gas; no radio, and the toilet is a large pail. This is only emptied once a fortnight. This in our England. I think the local authorities need to be shaken up a bit, and even if they have not the money the Government should loan it to them in these parts.
Then from another person—who again probably came from some other part of the country—who is now married to a United States airman and is living in this village of Brisley, I received a letter in which she writes:
… we are living at the above address. I am writing to ask you if you can do something regarding this part of England. We are ourselves pretty well off with regards to some people here, but even so our water from the well is not fit to drink and my husband has to carry water in a jar from the Base. Most people have no running water, no toilets, no light, and what hits most is there is no daily bus service.
As I say, we cannot have some villages with these modern amenities and others without them. People living in villages without these amenities, particularly farmers, cannot be expected to carry on against the competition for labour which exists. To my mind, and I think to the mind of every clear thinking person, from a national point of view there should be no doubt whatever about whether we are to go forward, or whether this cry for economy in national expenditure should put this development in jeopardy. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, if he cannot say more than he has already said—and I thought his speech very disappointing—will, with the Minister, use all his powers to fight the Chancellor, and within the Government, for these water and sewerage services to be stepped up rather than curtailed.
It is the fact that all councils dealing with these matters are wondering what to do. They could, perhaps, have met the financial cost with the aid of grants in the days when interest rates were low. But now that interest rates are at their present level these councils are wondering whether they should proceed. No doubt tomorrow, in his speech, the Chancellor will indicate what is to be done, or should be done.
Though there are black spots in Norfolk and probably one of the darkest is in the area to which I have referred, the village of Brisley, which is in the Mitford and Launditch rural district, there are places where considerable headway has been made. At the end of the war a number of rural districts had no piped water supply at all. But working hand in hand with the Ministry, the councils have now completed their schemes and every village has a piped water supply. In four villages sewerage works have been completed, or are being constructed, and other schemes are in various stages of planning, so that we are making progress which I should not like to see retarded.
Arising out of our experience, we must ask ourselves whether the money being devoted to this purpose is being used to the best advantage. In the early days we came up against two difficulties. The first was that the Ministry advised big regional water schemes, but we found them rather impracticable. We have developed local supplies, confined in some cases to one or two villages or to a small group. By that method it is possible to get water more quickly and cheaply to a greater population.
The other difficulty which we experienced with regard to sewerage schemes was that we had to engage the services of consulting engineers whose offices were usually in London. Their previous experience had been with large city sewerage works or large-scale schemes for towns or, during the war, with schemes for the Air Ministry or the Army to meet the needs of expanding camps or airfields. When these people came to plan village sewerage schemes they had big ideas. We found those ideas very impracticable. They would use the money too quickly. Their return being based on a percentage of the total expenditure there was no encouragement whatsoever

for the consulting engineers to be economical.
I have, in fact, seen schemes which have been based on maps, with long lines of sewers being laid along roads where the existing houses had been condemned. In one village I have seen a sewer laid 10 ft. in the ground which, to my know ledge, will never have a connection because there are not many houses along that street, and those people who are there will never go to the expense of connecting with the main sewer.
We have, therefore, used the ability of our local council officials in Norfolk to devise sewerage schemes on a more economical basis. Instead of taking as an example what has been done for the large towns we have taken what was done for the large country houses and have developed that system for a whole village. We have found that successful from both the technical and the economic aspects. A scheme that is working in the village of Sporle, where I live, has been under close observation. They have tested the effluent from the sewerage works. The water produced by this new and modified system has proved better than samples taken from wells, the water from which is still being used for human consumption in a neighbouring village.
To make the best use of the money devoted to this purpose there is no need to go into the question of the best method of sewerage works and the levels of the sewers. These people from the towns have the idea that one should cut through hills or little rises at great depths and at great cost, whereas we have found it very much cheaper to keep the sewers shallow and, if necessary, do some pumping rather than to incur the enormous capital cost of deep-laid sewers. I therefore believe that in reconsidering the working of the Bill we should probe fairly deeply into our methods and into the question of economy and efficiency.
The size of the grants is a matter which is now causing a great deal of worry. We are, in fact, getting it from both barrels from the Government at present. Every scheme now being submitted from Norfolk is getting a smaller percentage grant than was the case two, three or four years ago. We are getting the increased cost in the rate of interest on the loan and getting a smaller percentage grant to meet that cost. That ought not to have been


necessary. The Government ought to have been in a position to see that the money was made available.
The great problem with which we are faced in many villages is essentially one of planning. Very often groups of council houses have been built outside a village and then connected with the village and with other scattered parts for sewerage purposes, which is very costly. What is needed is for each village to be planned before any new houses are built, and for the houses which are then to be built to be placed upon the line of the sewer.
This is an urgent matter, because the councils are proceeding with house building and are often causing a greater problem both in regard to the supply of water and dealing with sewage. I hope that the Ministry will give more consideration to the planning of sewerage, water and housing schemes. If we can rebuild upon the old sites in the village instead of developing new ones outside, the costs of these services will be very much cheaper than if the village is allowed to straggle out into the country.

8.41 p.m.

Mr. G. B. Drayson: It is most appropriate that on the day that Parliament has reassembled after a long Summer Recess we should be discussing this Bill, because the very splendid summer that we have enjoyed has in many cases shown up the inadequacies of local water supplies in some of our towns and villages. During the Summer Recess I had cause to be in communication with the Minister about the supply in Malhamdale, especially in regard to the town of Kirkby Malham, where the inhabitants were relying upon a village tap which was operating only for half an hour or so every day.
Not only did the farmers in Malhamdale lose milk, owing to their inability to cool it due to the lack of water; in the industrial towns of Barnoldswick and Earby the people may even now be rationed because of the inadequate water supply. It is rather galling to those who live in the Yorkshire dales to think that although they are the main source of supply to the cities of Leeds and Bradford, from the rivers and moorland becks, they themselves have not an adequate supply of water.
I should like to take this opportunity of mentioning the importance of sewerage. The parish councils of Buckden and Draughton have been writing to me for some time in this connection, and I hope that the additional money being made available for these schemes will be devoted by the appropriate rural councils to schemes in these areas. In fact, I understand that Draughton is included in a large water scheme promoted by the Skipton Rural District Council, and it may be that there has been a delay because of the inadequacy of the Government grant. I hope that this Measure will make it easier for the council to go ahead with its plans.
I hope that the Minister will speed up his decisions when local authorities ask for Ministerial approval of their proposals. I am satisfied that a great deal of the inconvenience which has been caused to my constituents during this very dry summer would have been avoided if approval of their schemes had been given rather earlier than it was. I welcome the Bill, which I believe comes at a most appropriate time, and I hope that local authorities, especially those in my own area, will take full advantage of it.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard (St. Ives): First I should like to thank my hon. Friend and his Ministry for the extremely helpful way in which they came to our assistance in a vexed local water supply problem during the Recess. I am most grateful, and I can speak for many others in that respect.
Secondly, in considering the wider aspects, to which my hon. Friend referred, I hope that there will be no question of curtailing this work.

Mr. G. Brown: What a hope!

Mr. Howard: I hope that there will be no question of curtailing the provision of water in rural areas. Every day we are told of the importance of the export market. Tied up with that is tourism, and what will people say if they go to a part of the country and find that there is no water? That should be borne in mind, apart from the agricultural needs. The Government are constantly urging people to get T.T. attested herds, and yet there is no water to enable them to do so.
I hope my hon. and right hon. Friend will do everything they can to impress


this need upon the Chancellor. Although there may be savings in other directions, pray Heaven there will be no saving in the provision of water, which is a vital necessity to us in west Cornwall.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: We have had a useful debate, except that it had to be knocked about a little because the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland felt obliged to come into the middle of the debate to explain the provisions of the Bill and the need for the Bill in Scotland. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept this in the spirit in which it is offered: the fact that he had to interrupt the debate as he did to make a speech which, he will agree, did not fit into the debate up to that point, is evidence that it was a mistake to have the one Bill for two countries.
We are amending the Scottish Act of 1949 and the English Act of 1951, and it would have been better if we had had two separate Bills. If we could not have two separate Bills, then my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) is right and we might have had a little organisation on the Government Front Bench so that one Minister could have opened the debate and the other could have replied to it.
When we discuss rural water supplies and sewerage we are impelled to think about the provision of hygienic living conditions and improved amenities in the countryside. The point which has struck me most forcibly in recent years in my peregrinations about rural Scotland is this: since the public enterprise electricity authorities were established, a great transformation has taken place in the provision of electricity. No one believes for a moment that we should have had the rural electrification which we have at present had we not nationalised electricity. When we ask people in the rural areas what they think of rural electrification, since they have joined the grid, they say, "It is wonderful, but first things first; we should first have had water." That is what they say over and over again.
It is true that since 1944 a real effort has been made to provide rural water supplies. The Joint Unler-Secretary of State said the first Act was in 1944. In fact, it was in 1934. The hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. Drayson), who did not

hear any of the debate, came into the Chamber a quarter of an hour ago, made a speech and disappeared. He said that this was a most appropriate time to have the Bill, after the drought of the summer, and suggested that it was evidence that the Government intended to see that there was no repetition of the drought.
The 1934 Act was introduced after there had been a public outcry following a severe drought in 1933. Under that Act we in Scotland were given £137,500. By 1944 the money had not been spent. That lends weight to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper said; it is one thing for Parliament to approve the passage of a Bill providing for the expenditure of public money but quite another thing for the Government to see that the money is spent and the work done. The work was not done in the late 1930s, even to spend £137,000 in Scotland, and now we are talking in terms of £30 million. The increase in Scotland is from £20 million to £30 million.
I thought there was a little inconsistency in the speech of the Joint-Under Secretary of State for Scotland. Perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong. He repeated what the Parliamentary Secretary said about the value of the schemes that had been completed to date and the schemes in progress—water supplies £6 million completed and in progress £13 million, sewerage £1·7 million completed and £3 million in progress, a total of £23·7 million completed and in progress. The Joint Under-Secretary also said that £17 million was spent or pledged. The £17 million is neither the £23·7 million nor is it 60 per cent. of the £23·7 million. The Joint Under-Secretary said that on average the Government contribution to those schemes was 60 per cent. in Scotland. I do not know what the £17 million is. It is neither the total sum, nor is it 60 per cent. of the total sum. I think it would be difficult to reconcile the figures offered by the Joint Under-Secretary.
I wonder whether the Joint Under-Secretary can tell us whether the additional money in Scotland will carry Scotland over the next five years, and whether it is expected that by the end of that time Scotland will be adequately covered by rural water supplies and sewerage schemes. That may be asking a lot, but I remember that in 1949, before


the Measure of that year was introduced, a survey was made and it was calculated—perhaps wrongly—that the expenditure on rural water supplies and sewerage at the costs at that time would be about £40 million. That amount would do the lot. It would provide rural water supplies and sewerage schemes everywhere. Of course, there would be the odd shepherd's cottage in the hills which would be difficult to include, but every village and hamlet was to be joined up. It was assumed at that time that, taking the schemes overall, the average contribution from the Government funds would be 50 per cent., and that is why the Measure provided for Government grants amounting in total to £20 million.
Is it expected now that this £30 million—that is, this additional £10 million and the then sum of £20 million—will do the same work as was expected to be done for £20 million in 1949, or will the amount now be £60 million, in place of the £40 million that we estimated in 1949 would do the whole job in Scotland? Of course, one must bear in mind that the average rate of grant is worked out not at 50 per cent. but at 60 per cent. Can we have an explanation of what effect the higher interest rates will have? That is what we have not been told yet. An hon. Member opposite said that that could be left out of account because it did not matter. I should have thought that it matters very much indeed.
We had an Act of Parliament a few months ago which provided that instead of the Government making a capital grant towards the cost of the schemes, the Government would make a contribution in instalments over a period of thirty years. The Joint Under-Secretary of State said that rural water supplies and sewerage schemes are running at about £3,500,000 a year. With schemes costing £3,500,000 a year, if instead of paying for them out of capital we make the contributions over a period of thirty years and we have to pay 5 per cent. interest—that is before we hear what the Chancellor says tomorrow—then, of course, the £3,500,000 of work will cost rather more than double that amount of money at the end of the day. We wonder whether or not any part of this additional money is necessary to meet that additional burden.
It is not very clear, when one studies the Act which we passed a few months ago, whether the provisions of that Act will take care of the additional cost which will fall upon the Exchequer, not to speak of the local authorities, of having to fund those schemes over a period of thirty years.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and the Parliamentary Secretary both gave me the impression in a nod, half a minute ago, that not a penny of this money would be taken away in higher interest rates. I sincerely hope that is so. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will put that on record when he replies to the debate, and will explain in what way higher interest rates will not take a penny of this additional money.
The Joint Under-Secretary was good enough to explain that in Scotland the rate of grant varies from 15 per cent. to 85 per cent., and he suggested, but no more than suggested, that there was not any change contemplated. But during the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper, one of his hon. Friends, who was then in the Chamber but has not been in it since. intervened to say that it was now 28 per cent., not 60 per cent. Had he any reason for saying that, or was he merely thinking of a scheme in his own constituency, or was it that he had been given some advice from the Member or the office that a change was contemplated? I understand from the Joint Under-Secretary that he was not given any advice at all and that he was speaking quite irresponsibly.

Mr. G. Brown: Who, the Joint Under-Secretary?

Mr. Fraser: The Joint Under-Secretary if one likes, but I was really referring to the hon. and gallant Member for South Angus (Captain Duncan).
The Joint Under-Secretary also explained why schemes were more costly in Scotland. I gathered from the speeches that we have listened to in the Chamber this evening that hon. Gentlemen who have small towns in their constituencies believe that the provision of the Bill will help them to get water supplies in these small towns. This Bill does not at all help the position of water supplies in small towns in Scotland, and I am wondering whether the term "rural area" is differently interpreted in the two countries.
I speak subject to correction, but my recollection is that in Scotland a community of fewer than 2,000 is a rural area and a community of more than 2,000 is not a rural area. The provision of supplies of either water or sewerage to a community of more than 2,000 in Scotland would not get any grant at all, and I am wondering whether the same rule applies south of the Border. If there is a different interpretation of what is a rural area one can well understand that there is quite a difference in the average rate of grant paid in respect of water supplies and sewerage schemes.
It was pleasing to hear that more progress is now being made with the provision of sewerage. I know that people who do not have a piped water supply think only of the need for such a supply, but no sooner do they have a piped water supply than they want sewerage. How often have I had people say to me, "We have no modern sanitation in this community." They are inclined to think that they are the only people in the world who do not have it. People nowadays take for granted the provision of this service, which is essential to hygiene and proper, decent living in the second half of the twentieth century.
I hope that the Government will give every encouragement to authorities in the rural areas to provide not only water supplies but sewerage schemes. I hope that Ministers will do their utmost—irrespective of economies the Chancellor may feel obliged to impose upon his colleagues in the Government and on local authorities—to ensure that there is no slowing up of the provision of water supplies and sewerage.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Deedes: I speak again by leave of the House.
I hope the debate which has taken the last two hours has answered at least the first of the six questions which the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) addressed to me. I was surprised that he should do so, but he expressed doubt as to the policy of coming forward with instalments. We think it is rather a good thing that the House from time to time should be given a chance to review progress made in this matter. In fact it has always been the practice to ask for allocations for several years ahead and, when those are spent, to come back and ask for

more. I am sure that on reflection the right hon. Member will agree that that is how it should be done. I hope he will further agree that the very helpful, constructive and useful debate which we have had justifies that policy. So much for the first question.
The right hon. Member asked why we did not introduce this Bill eight months ago, when we did not need the money as we do now. I would remind him that his humorous and widely inaccurate account of what happened before that has no relation to facts, and that on that occasion I gave him ample warning that we should be reappearing about this time to ask for the money for which we are asking today. He went on to seek to draw from me something more on the wider implications of the capital expenditure involved. When we last debated water supplies the right hon. Member made a reference to his being a member of the Parliamentary Secretaries' union. As an old member of that union, I am sure he knows that it is vain to try to draw from me, on the eve of the Budget, statements of wide financial implication on capital expenditure and so on.
I have no intention of being drawn further into that aspect than the remarks I made earlier today, which were prepared with certain care in view of the likelihood of the right hon. Member making a point of it. We have given the figure which we hope to spend between now and 1st April, 1956, the figure of £17 million, which is the highest total on record and about £3 million more than last year. I have said that schemes which are regarded by local authorities and by my right hon. Friend as urgent will be met up to that total and that any scheme which we have already promised to authorise this year will be allowed to proceed. May I stress this to hon. Members who have expressed concern on the point. That looks after and puts on the highest level expenditure between now and next April.

Mr. G. Brown: The hon. Gentleman introduced this point in his opening speech. He has the money to provide for expenditure up to April next year and, therefore, this Bill is not required for what he is now saying. He is telling us that what has been promised to be authorised, or is regarded jointly by the


Minister and local authorities as urgent, up to £17 million, up to next April, will go through. He is not telling us whether anything will go through beyond that date, yet this Bill is to provide money beyond that date. Therefore, one is bound to ask him—and he must not be too coy, as he has introduced this question—what brakes are to be applied on the use of the money provided under the Bill.

Mr. Deedes: The right hon. Gentleman knows quite well that regardless of whether there is to be a Budget tomorrow, expenditure of this sort must be approved annually. It would be quite vain for me to forecast here what the expenditure will be for the financial year 1956–57. All I have stated is what we shall spend between now and next April. At that rate of progress, the money now being voted will last us for the five years.
The right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members asked about the cost of doing the whole job. Perhaps at this point I might make as clear as I can the financial implications of the earlier arrangements that were reached in the previous Bill for the payment of instalments in relation to the £40 million and also the effect of the higher rate of interest, in respect of which one or two hon. Members have asked questions. The instalment system will not reduce what is spent out of the £40 million; it will not touch that sum which is now being voted. Only the capital sum—I stressed this in moving the previous Bill—will continue to count against the permitted total of £40 million.
This £40 million, converted into instalment grants, becomes, on the current 5 per cent. rate of interest, £2·588 million per annum for 30 years or, in all, £77·7 million. At 3¾ per cent., the £40 million would have become £66·96 million, and at 4 per cent., £69 million. I hope that, with a little fairly simple arithmetic, hon. Members can deduce from that the answer they sought as to the effect of the rate of interest and the policy of payment by instalment introduced by the earlier Bill.

Mr. T. Fraser: The Parliamentary Secretary has shown that at the 5 per cent. rate of interest, the £40 million will really cost the Chancellor of the Exchequer £77 million, which represents

an extra £37 million, but eight months ago he and the Government—indeed, it was in the Financial Resolution of the Bill—said that the cost to the Exchequer was £19 million.

Mr. Deedes: The hon. Member is confusing another figure. I have given a fairly straightforward answer on the question—

Mr. Fraser: Oh, no.

Mr. Deedes: —of the additional cost of the higher rate of interest and the payment by instalments. I do not want to go over again ground which, the right hon. Gentleman will agree, we covered fully on the question of payment by instalments on the earlier Bill.

Mr. G. Brown: The Parliamentary Secretary is not treating my hon. Friend fairly. I am not good at figures and my hon. Friend must be responsible for those he has worked out. He says that, taking the figure which the Parliamentary Secretary has now produced, the cost at the 5 per cent. rate of interest on the instalment plan involves an additional £37 million over and above the £40 million now being voted. By the previous Bill, we voted £19 million for England and Wales and, I think, £8 million for Scotland, a total of £27 million. Therefore, there is £10 million which is not so voted. That £10 million, therefore, will either come wholly from the ratepayers, being un-grant-aided, or will come out of the £40 million, which would leave only £30 million. That is the point of my hon. Friend's interjection. If the Parliamentary Secretary does not dispute these figures, he is surely left to accept that we were right in saying that £10 million would come out of the £40 million now being voted, which ought to be added to the price of supplying the water.

Mr. Deedes: I am sorry if I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman. Obviously, when discussing the instalment system on the earlier Bill, we were not in a position to consider the effect on the £40 million which is under discussion today. The figure which I have given of £40 million, which at the end of thirty years becomes £77·7 million, must be a new figure. Any figure which I gave during our earlier proceedings would have related to the money then under discussion.

Mr. G. Brown: But more money is wanted now.

Mr. Deedes: We certainly would want more money. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not confusing what I said during the earlier debate about the sum then under consideration with what I have said about today's sum of £40 million.

Mr. Hayman: The hon. Gentleman, I think, will recall that on the Second Reading of the previous Bill he said that the new interest charge which the Exchequer would have to bear because of the instalment system was about 66 per cent. By the time of the Report stage there had been an increase in the rates of interest and he put the figure at about 72 per cent. The hon. Gentleman said just now that we should have £40 million in capital grants and an additional £37 million interest. I take it that that additional charge will be no less than 92½ per cent.

Mr. Deedes: It is, perhaps, unfortunate that the hon. Member should now move on to a percentage basis. I thought the simplest way to answer the questions I was asked was to speak in terms of pounds. I hope that from what I have said anyone who wants to take the matter further can do the necessary arithmetical sum. I think I ought to press on.

Mr. T. Fraser: I am sorry, but I confess that I misunderstood the Parliamentary Secretary when he talked about £40 million. I thought he talked of the £45 million already provided by Act. If the interest rate on £40 million would bring that £40 million up to £77 million surely the higher interest rate on the £45 million already provided by Act of Parliament would increase it by more than £19 million?

Mr. Deedes: With regard to the instalment system I referred only to the amount outstanding of the £45 million. It was on the amount still outstanding we were having to apply the extra cost of the instalment system.
One further word about the English and Scottish rates. It is quite true, as, I think, the right hon. Gentleman discovered, that the Exchequer pays Scotland twice as much. The system is different because in England the county contributes roughly the same amount as the Exchequer, which means one-third from each party concerned. In Scotland

the county does the job, but the Exchequer pays considerably more. The right hon. Gentleman wants to know why, and the answer is wrapped up in the very different geological, geographical, demographical and hydrographical situation in Scotland. The areas are larger and sparser, and many of the counties are poorer. That is why the grant is in many cases higher than the grant in England.
I think that that answers the bulk of the questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Sir H. Roper) raised the question of the drought and of the effect it has had. I would certainly agree that the drought conditions of the summer have revealed insufficient resources. Not only in Cornwall, we are very far from being drought proof. It is part of the object of the Bill to enable the putting into effect of schemes to reduce the effects of drought in future. In north Cornwall the board is proposing to lay a main to connect its system with the adjoining undertaker's main, and will thereby be able to ensure better supplies for next summer.
The hon. Member complained of the proportion which was paid to—I think it was—one local authority for sewerage schemes. At St. Breward we have revised that grant and are about to write to the local authority about it.
The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen) both complained that there had not been a breakdown of the figures for Wales. I am sorry about that. I thought that in the first speech I made they were quite sufficient. I know that the hon. Gentleman likes to get the Welsh picture separately.
I can give him the assurance that Wales as a whole does rather better in regard to the amount of grant than England. No doubt the right hon. Member for Belper will want to "come back" about that. The average grant paid in England, as I have said, is 30 per cent. The average grant paid in Wales is 45 per cent., and for the same reason as in the case of Scotland, the different nature of the countryside. The grant paid is in actual figures £15 million in England and £3 million for Wales. England has had five times as much grant as Wales and England has approximately ten times the rural


population. Therefore, I hope that there the hon. Gentleman can derive reassurance about the place which Wales has in the allocation of these grants.
Several hon. Members asked how these grants are determined. It is not done at a flat rate of 33⅓1 per cent. As I think is generally known, determination of the grant is based on the estimated annual net cost of the scheme after taking into account loan charges and working expenses on the one hand, and anticipated revenue and savings on the other, but it has due regard to the situation of the local authority and the ability of the local authority to meet the cost. A whole lot of considerations are taken into account and if necessary discussed with the local authority.
The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) asked a question about a local scheme on which I can give him news which I hope he will think good. His question was about the Stithians, St. Day and Lanner scheme. The Minister has today awarded a grant towards the rural portion of the scheme. I hope that that information will give pleasure to the hon. Member.

Mr. G. Brown: Forty-five per cent. or 60 per cent.?

Mr. Deedes: I should like to have notice of that question.
The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye) made a number of observations of which we shall certainly take note. I know that he does not expect a short-term answer to some of the long-term implications which he raised. He asked about Civil Defence. We have not had direct conversations with the Home Office about that matter but we consider the question of evacuation when we consider the size of any scheme. That is one of the factors borne in mind in approving a scheme of a certain size. He quoted "The Archers" to me. I do not feel answerable even to Dan Archer in this debate.
One of the functions of a Ministry when approving a scheme is to make sure that unnecessarily extravagant schemes are not submitted. I do not say that they are, but if they are it is the Minister's function to persuade the local authority to avoid extravagance. That is one of

the things in regard to which hon. Members say that a good deal of delay is involved, but it is one of the virtues in the Ministry having to approve a scheme.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) asked me two questions. He spoke of the total amount of the schemes approved for which grant had been pledged. He was puzzled by the figure of £17 million. I gave three categories of schemes—schemes finished, schemes now in progress, and schemes in the third category which had been approved and for which the money had been pledged. It is that third category which brings us almost to the limit of our £45 million. I think that the figure of £17 million, to which the hon. Member referred, represented the total value of schemes approved for which grant has been pledged. That, of course, would not be the grant, which would be approximately a third or less of the £17 million.
The hon. Member for Hamilton asked about the position of Scotland under the Bill. As for England, this is not the final but rather we hope the penultimate step in getting us as far as we can with the laying on of water and sewerage. The hon. Member also asked how the term "rural locality" compared as between England and Scotland. As a number of hon. Members are aware, the term "rural locality" is unfortunately not defined in the original Act and that leads to a certain amount of difficulty in our negotiations. I assure the hon. Member that Scotland does not receive more or less than England by reason of this term. The term "rural locality" has no bearing between us.

Mr. T. Fraser: This is terribly important. We have been discussing rural water supplies the whole evening. It would help if hon. Members knew what we were discussing and how the Government determine what is a rural population. I had a shot by suggesting that a rural community was one of less than 2,000 population. Am I right or wrong?

Mr. Deedes: It would obviously be impossible to have over the whole of the British Isles an absolutely flat rule in this matter, but it is not as difficult as the hon. Member would think to decide in the end what is a predominantly rural


locality. It could even be that an urban district authority with a predominantly rural population could qualify for one of these grants. It is much better that there should not be a hard and fast rule, but that each case should be examined with a view to helping those populations so dispersed as to need some assistance from the Exchequer.
I apologise for having taken some time in replying to the debate, but a great number of questions were asked and had to be answered. We have heard a good many examples tonight of what still remains to be done. I hope that I did not under-rate what has been done during the last ten years, or, if the right hon. Gentleman prefers it, the last twenty years. The strides in the last few years have certainly been lengthening, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that.
Of course, this work must take its place and pace among all the other runners in the field of public expenditure, and that is just as well-known to the right hon. Gentleman as it is to me. We shall do our best to ensure that it has its share, and a share which its importance demands. I hope that the House will now be able to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]

Committee Tomorrow.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE [MONEY]

Considered in Committee of the whole House under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees) [Queen's Recommendation signified].

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to increase the limit on the contributions out of moneys provided by Parliament which may be made under section one of the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys so provided of any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of such moneys under the said section one, under Part I of the Local Government Act,

1948, or under the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1954.—[Mr. Deedes.]

9.21 p.m.

Mr. George Brown: The hon. Gentleman is having to work hard tonight, because he has not got his hon. Friend with him, which makes him have to work twice as hard, and he has not even got the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The last time we had a Money Resolution on a Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill the Financial Secretary came in and we got a speech out of him. Tonight, I want to ask him what the blazes this Financial Resolution means. With most of these Resolutions, it is possible, with a little tortuous imagination, to follow them, but this is one of the finest collections of jargon I have ever seen on the Order Paper, and, quite frankly, I do not understand it. It says:
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to increase the limit on the contributions"—
and I should have thought that if we increased the limit we reduced the amount payable—
it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys so provided of any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of such moneys under the said section one, under Part I of the Local Government Act. 1948"—
I do not know what that means. There is no provision to raise the money. The last reference is to the Local Government Act, 1948 and the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1954, which, presumably. refers to the equalisation grant. I do not see where it comes in.
The Resolution as it stands is meaningless, and I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will have a shot at explaining it to us and will tell us how it provides for the money to be made available. Secondly, while he is on the job, will he also return, in this debate on the Financial Resolution, to this business of the extra cost to be imposed under the arrangements we made in the previous Act?
As he quite rightly said, that Act voted £27½ million, which was the extra cost of spreading it over £30 million of capital more than was envisaged. We are now raising the capital sums by a further £40 million, but there is no provision—unless


under this Financial Resolution it is to come out of the £40 million—for this extra cost involved by the arrangement we debated on the last Act. Either we are now intending to spend money which we have not voted, or this Financial Resolution, to anybody lucky enough to understand it, provides for that money to be paid out of that sum. If it does, then the capital sum must be less than £40 million.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will try to explain what these otherwise meaningless sentences mean, and also tell me whether the extra costs involved under the arrangements made in the last Act are to be met or whether this Resolution means that they are to come out of the £40 million.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes): I should like to deal with the right hon. Gentleman's last point first. I repeat that none of this interest is coming out of the sum of £40 million. The right hon. Member, if he desires, will have an opportunity of debating the additional money when we come to the Estimates. This will be a matter for annual Treasury accounting. That is where the additional money required by this rate of interest will be found. The £40 million capital sum remains for the purposes that the Bill indicates, namely for water and water and sewerage only. Over and above the rate of interest on that are Exchequer charges and it is there that he will have an opportunity of saying anything that he may wish.
As to the Financial Resolution, that authorises the additional expenditure from Exchequer funds which will be required if the Bill becomes law. It is mainly the expenditure of additional grants under the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage

Acts. It also includes—and this was the point he particularly raised—additional Exchequer equalisation grant under the Local Government Act, 1948, and the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1947, because Exchequer equalisation grant is calculated by reference to the total expenditure of the authorities to which it is paid. The Bill will enable the authorities to carry out more rural water and sewerage schemes and thereby increase their expenditure by reference to which Exchequer equalisation grant is calculated. That is the reason for the reference to the Exchequer equalisation grant in the Financial Resolution.

Mr. Brown: if the Parliamentary Secretary says that that is what it means, I must accept that that is what it means, but I do not see how it is made to mean that. I return to the other point, that of interest. If, in fact, as he now tells us, these are only Treasury payments borne on his Department's Estimates in the ordinary way, therefore forming no part of this arrangement, why did we vote £27,500,000 in the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1955? Presumably there was no need to vote it, because it would have been borne year by year. It sounds as though the Parliamentary Secretary's arguments and defences change every time he comes to the Dispatch Box.

Mr. Deedes: The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten what was the purpose of that Act. It was to authorise new arrangements whereby this money should be paid by instalments. It voted no sum of money. It did say what the financial consequences would be, but all it did was to authorise the arrangement under which we are now working. This is the Bill which authorises the money.

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

THE CASE OF MISS MACMICHAEL

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel J H. Harrison.]

9.28 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Robinson (St. Pancras, North): I want tonight to raise the case of Miss MacMichael, an unfortunate young woman who endured over a long period, quite unnecessarily as it turned out, considerable suffering. This is a rather wretched and somewhat complicated story and although we are fortunately not bound by the normal half-hour limit of the Adjournment debate, I will give the story as briefly as I can. It is, however, necessary to go into some detail.
Miss MacMichael as a fit and healthy young woman joined the Women's Royal Naval Service as a rating in February, 1942, at the age of 19. Her family had long associations with the Navy and it was very natural that she should wish to serve her country in time of war in that capacity. It was at that time, and as long as she was in the Service, her ambition to make her career in the Wrens, to become a Regular, and, if possible, to obtain a commission. In 1946, after the war was over, she was, in fact, selected for cadet training and underwent a course which she successfully completed. She was commissioned as third officer in August of that year.
About a year after, in 1947, Miss MacMichael began to notice a slight swelling in her abdomen, coupled with a tendency to tire rather more easily than she had hitherto. Early the following year this swelling became more pronounced and she was sent by the medical officer in charge of the Royal Naval Hospital at Port Edgar to Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, for examination.
Here she came under the care of the tuberculosis specialist attached to the hospital who conducted an examination of her and reached the conclusion she was suffering from abdominal tuberculosis or, more precisely, peritoneal tuberculosis. He made a report to the naval authorities, dated 25th October, 1948, in which he said categorically:
This officer is suffering from abdominal tuberculosis of the ascitic type.

I think it a most unfortunate thing that the substance of this report was communicated to Miss MacMichael as, not unnaturally, it caused her acute distress.
Miss MacMichael was at Hairmyres Hospital under the care of the same specialist for nine months until April, 1949, when she was transferred to a sanatorium in Aberdeenshire for serving officers suffering from tuberculosis. While there she was seen, not only by the resident medical staff, but was visited on two or three occasions by the visiting specialist in non-pulmonary tuberculosis, who was a professor of Edinburgh University. Despite the fact that they failed at this sanatorium to isolate any tubercular bacilli, all the doctors confirmed the diagnosis and repeated the statement that this woman had peritoneal tuberculosis.
Miss MacMichael was at the Scottish sanatorium for eleven months and was then moved to another sanatorium in Switzerland, at Montana. Although the transfer to Switzerland was made under Service arrangements, the Admiralty were able to contribute only nine guineas a week towards the cost of keeping her there, out of a weekly charge of seventeen guineas, which left eight guineas to be found by Miss MacMichael herself. She remained in Switzerland for six months which meant a cost to herself or her family of over £200.
Again, the doctor in charge of the Swiss sanatorium said he had at no time any occasion to question the diagnosis of the doctor in whose care Miss MacMichael had been in the Scottish sanatorium, a doctor whom he described as
a physician for whose special knowledge of tuberculosis, clinical acumen and judgment I have the highest respect.
He also said that in his view the patient's condition was compatible with the diagnosis.
On her return from Switzerland—and we are now in September, 1950—Miss MacMichael entered the Royal Naval Hospital, at Chatham, and three months later was discharged from the W.R.N.S. on medical grounds and subsequently awarded a 100 per cent. disability pension.
While in Switzerland she had been recommended to put herself in charge of a general practitioner and this she did after her discharge from the Navy. The general practitioner sought the opinion of


a Harley Street consultant in tuberculous diseases. Once again, these two doctors agreed with the original diagnosis as being the most probable—but with one difference. The consultant who had been called in recommended that if, after a time, the condition showed no signs of improvement surgical treatment should be tried.
This, in fact, happened and ultimately Miss MacMichael entered St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, and was operated on in July, 1952. That is almost exactly four years after her first entry into hospital in Scotland. The surgeon who operated found an ovarian cyst, which was promptly removed. He also found that all the other organs were perfectly healthy and that there was no trace whatever of any tuberculous disease. Miss MacMichael made an excellent recovery and was soon restored to complete health.
Those are the facts of the case and, I think, a melancholy series of facts. For four years this young woman was consistently and wrongly told that she was suffering from what I think hon. Members will agree is one of the two most dreaded diseases. In addition, she was—unnecessarily as it proved—exposed to tuberculous infection for more than 18 months in two sanatoria. A promising career, in which she was extremely happy, was erroneously terminated on medical grounds, and—although she was a young and attractive woman—she was forced to put out of her mind throughout the period any thought of marriage. One slightly happier aspect is that when I last saw her she was, I am glad to say, engaged to be married; but clearly while she thought she was suffering from tuberculosis she would not, as a responsible person entertain thoughts of marriage. In addition, she was put to heavy financial expense.
How did it come about that this young woman had to suffer all this anguish of mind and virtually to lose four whole years out of the all-too-short span of youth? This happened for no other reason but that one doctor—negligently, as I shall show in a minute—made a wrong diagnosis, and that error was perpetuated by at least six other doctors—and probably many more—among them distinguished specialists in this particular disease. She had to suffer all this because never once in four years did any of these doctors think of calling in a

gynaecologist. I am no doctor, but a doctor friend of mind tells me that an ovarian cyst is one of the simplest things to discover and to diagnose, and it is inconceivable that if this woman had been seen by a gynaecologist at any time during that four years he would not immediately have seen what was wrong.
When this case was brought to my notice by a friend whom Miss Mac-Michael consulted, I at once expressed the view that, whatever the legal position, the heaviest moral liability rested upon the Admiralty as her employers, and that she was entitled, in common justice, to some kind of compensation or redress for the pain, suffering and expense she had undergone. Miss MacMichael told me that she did not want to engage in any legal action, and when I wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty in December last I made it perfectly clear to him that there was no question of litigation.
It may be that I was wrong to do it, but I thought that it was right to be perfectly frank, and, to be honest with the House, I thought that the case was such an overwhelming one, upon grounds of common justice and humanity, that it certainly would not be prejudiced by saying that there was no danger of litigation. I did not ask the First Lord to admit any legal liability I did not even ask him to admit any moral liability, but merely to make some offer of redress, as an act of grace. I felt confident that the First Lord, who is a reasonable and humane person, would see this case in the same light as I did.
Seven and a half months elapsed before I got a reply. I did not let the grass grow under my feet entirely during that period; I sent several reminders to the Department. I saw the First Lord and the Parliamentary Secretary upon several occasions, and when it was quite clear that the old Parliament was coming to an end I even tabled a Question just before the Dissolution. On each occasion I received the answer that the matter was still under consideration, with the usual polite apology that one always gets, and, indeed, expects from the Admiralty. Not unnaturally, I did not worry unduly. I assumed that there was some difficulty in arriving at the appropriate sum that might be offered in compensation. I thought this especially as I gathered that there had been some consultations between the Admiralty and the Treasury.
Then, a day or so after the House rose for the Recess, I received a letter from the First Lord turning down my request flat—the request which I had made seven and a half months previously. The letter stated that the most careful consideration had been given to this case by the Admiralty and the Treasury, and that it had had the personal attention of the Chancellor.
Looking back upon the matter, I can come to only one conclusion. It now seems to me to be all too clear that when I thought a discussion was going on between the two Departments as to the appropriate amount of compensation, the only thing that could have been happening was that the Admiralty and the right hon. Gentleman considered that they had a moral liability and the Treasury—as one might have expected—disagreed. I believe that if there were any justice it would not be the hon. and gallant Gentleman who should be replying from the Dispatch Box tonight in defence of a case in which, so far as I know, he may not have any belief or confidence at all; it is the Treasury at whom I should be directing my fire. Unfortunately, such is our procedure that, for technical reasons, it is the Admiralty which has to reply.
The reasons given to me in the letter from the First Lord—which, to do him justice, expressed deep regret—were two in number. The first I can only describe as contemptible. It was said that any claim for personal injury against the Crown would be out of time, under the Law Reform (Limitation of Actions, &c.) Act, 1954. The First Lord said that in his view—which, I suppose, means in the Treasury's view—it would be wrong if a limitation so recently set by Parliament were lightly set aside by administrative action. I think it was an affront to this House to suggest that any hon. Member would object to a discretionary ex gratia payment in the exceptional circumstances which I have described. I am quite sure that no hon. Member would have taken any exception whatever to it.
Here is an Act which is designed to protect the Crown against abuses in the way of litigation being prayed in aid by a Government Department to evade a moral responsibility that almost any employer, private or State, one would imagine, would admit without hesitation.
So much for the first of the two reasons. The second, I think, is completely fallacious. The First Lord writes in his letter:
It is true that the diagnosis of tuberculosis in her case was mistaken but it was made in good faith by a large number of doctors, both Service and civil, and an honest mistake of this kind could hardly be said to amount to negligence.
I am no lawyer, but it is news to me that in order to establish negligence one has to prove bad faith. In the report of the first specialist to see this young woman, the man who first made the erroneous diagnosis, there are enumerated by him no fewer than six medical factors each one of which points contrary to the indication of tuberculosis. I will not weary the House with medical details because neither I nor the hon. and gallant Gentleman is a doctor, but I am assured by medical opinion that each of these factors should have made him hesitate before he diagnosed tuberculosis and that the six taken together amount to an almost overwhelming argument that his first conclusion was wrong.
I suggest that that is certainly negligence. Was it not negligence that not one of the half-dozen doctors who subsequently saw Miss MacMichael, and into whose care she came, never bothered to make a proper examination of her themselves but meekly accepted the diagnosis handed to them by the previous doctor? Did not a special responsibility in this respect rest on the naval doctor who finally recommended her discharge from the Service on medical grounds? Was it not negligence that a young and previously healthy young woman with an abdominal swelling was never once seen by a gynaecologist? If there is no negligence here, I can only conclude that negligence is a human frailty to which the medical profession can never plead guilty.
These were the flimsy reasons which led the Admiralty, backed by the Treasury, to turn down this request for some kind of compensation or redress for wrong done and injuries suffered. We have the miserable spectacle of a Department of State sheltering behind its privileged position in respect of personal injury and claims against the Crown and using the special immunity which this House conferred on the State to evade its


moral liabilities and responsibility. I think it is a pitifully mean decision.
Had she been employed by any private company in the country and undergone this suffering as a result of negligence by the employees of the company, or by anybody else while in the company's employ, the employers would have come to her aid and given her some compensation or redress. I think we are entitled to ask that the State should behave not as generously but more generously than private companies and private employers when dealing with their employees.
This is more than merely a personal case. It is an illustration of the whole question of fair dealing between the State and the individual. I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will at least be able to tell us tonight that he will give further consideration to this case. It is a very sad story and I am sorry that it involves the Navy and the Admiralty, not only because the Navy is Miss MacMichael's old Service but because it was the hon. and gallant Gentleman's old Service and, as long as the war lasted, it was my Service. I hope that even at this stage the hon. and gallant Gentleman will say that as an act of grace, purely ex gratia, he will do something to try to compensate what, in fact, is not compensatable, namely, the four years of misery which she suffered through the negligence of the naval and other authorities.

9.50 p.m.

The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Commander Allan Noble): The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) has gone into this sad case in great detail, and I will do my best to answer the points that he has raised.
The Admiralty has considered this matter most carefully and sympathetically. The hon. Member complained that we had taken seven and a half months to say "No." It would, of course, have been very easy to say "No" quickly, but we wanted to do everything possible in this case. As the hon. Member said, my right hon. Friend the First Lord took a personal interest in it, and so did I. I also had a further personal interest in the case because this lady was a constituent of mine at one time, and the hon. Member

and I discussed this matter and arranged that he should raise the case with the Admiralty.
As the hon. Gentleman said, this lady was serving in the Women's Royal Naval Service, and in July, 1948, after six years' service she went ill and was sent by her medical adviser for examination at the civil hospital at Hairmyres. There a tuberculosis specialist diagnosed abdominal T.B. after three months' observation. It was not a snap diagnosis. That is the diagnosis which the hon. Member says was negligent, and to which I shall revert in a moment.
I must just continue the story with the Admiralty emphasis as opposed to the hon. Member's. This officer was then accepted for long-term treatment, and was moved to a sanatorium in Aberdeenshire where a number of eminent tuberculosis specialists confirmed the diagnosis, as the hon. Member said. In 1950, nearly two years after the start of the illness, it was recommended that she should go to Switzerland. The hon. Member did not think it right that the Admiralty should only have paid 9 guineas. Actually Miss MacMichael asked the Admiralty to pay 7 guineas and the Admiralty paid nine. One must also remember, when talking of expense, that this officer was on full pay for the whole of this period.
While she was in this sanatorium in Switzerland she was under the care of a great authority on tuberculosis. Something then occurred which rather encouraged her medical advisers to confirm the diagnosis, because she began to get better and after six months in Switzerland she came home, but a naval medical board recommended that she should be invalided from the Service. In February, 1951, she left the W.R.N.S. with a gratuity and a pension, and I am sure that we are all very sorry that she had to give up her naval career at that stage.
Then, as the hon. Member said, she consulted a general practitioner and a Harley Street tuberculosis specialist. Both these doctors agreed that the probable diagnosis was tuberculosis, but they also agreed between them that if she did not get better they might try surgical treatment. I would emphasise here that when they did try surgical treatment that was not a fresh diagnosis. They operated to try to find out whether there was anything there. About eighteen months


later, in 1953, an operation was performed and, as the hon. Member said, they found that her condition was caused by a cyst. This was removed and she made a complete recovery and is now leading a normal life. As I have already said, I am sure she has all our sympathy. I was very interested to hear what the hon. Member said at the end of his speech about her future.
I now want to revert to the original diagnosis which the hon. Member suggests was negligent. My advice is that there is no doubt that that diagnosis was reasonable in the circumstances. There were T.B. symptoms and there was a T.B. history to which the hon. Member did not refer.

Mr. K. Robinson: I am reluctant to interrupt, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman said that I did not refer to this lady's earlier history. Is it not a fact that she had tubercular glands removed at the age of 17, and that when one has a mild tubercular infection like that in youth one is much more likely to develop immunity to tuberculosis in later life? What I left out of my remarks was a point in my favour and not in the hon. and gallant Gentleman's favour.

Commander Noble: I will give the hon. Gentleman that point. I wanted to say something about these symptoms because in medicine I think there is always room for more than one opinion, hence the expression, which we all know so well, that one often asks for a "second opinion."
On this occasion it was not a question of merely a second opinion. There was the specialist at the Aberdeen sanatorium, the specialist at the Swiss sanatorium, the naval medical board, the officer's own doctor and the Harley Street specialist, all of whom confirmed this diagnosis. As I said earlier, the final operation was only to find out; it was not a fresh diagnosis. The hon. Gentleman says that there were other symptoms which did not

point to tuberculosis. There may have been, but I think that one has to be awfully careful about this, because I feel that these other symptoms would perhaps loom now very much larger than they did then—seven years after the original diagnosis.
Medicine in retrospect is always very much easier than at the time when the patient is seen for the first time. I think that we should bear that in mind. We consider that the diagnosis was made in good faith, on reasonable grounds in the circumstances, and that there was no negligence.
I do not think that I need refer very fully to the legal position. The hon. Gentleman mentioned it, and I think that one has to bear in mind the legal position, because he said that Miss MacMichael had not intended to take legal proceedings, but that does not get away from the fact that she would have been bound by the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947, and the original Limitation Act, 1939, and since then by the Law Reform (Limitations of Actions &c.) Act, 1954. I think that, in spite of what the hon. Gentleman said, the House would agree that it clearly would be wrong "to try to set aside"—these are the words of the First Lord to the hon. Member—
such recent legislation by administrative action except in the most exceptional circumstances.
I am afraid that we are unable to make a ex gratia payment for the reasons which I have given. I am extremely sorry that this young lady had to go through that experience through no fault of her own and no fault of anyone else. I think that we should be making a very grave error if we confused an honest mistake with negligence. She has our sympathy and good wishes for a happy life in good health.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Ten o'clock.